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.
… On Sept. 10, members of the House Appropriations Committee
made clear that they heard this message, rejecting the White
House proposal to eliminate NOAA’s research arm and cut the
agency’s budget by one-third. Instead, the legislators approved
a fiscal year 2026 spending bill that includes a modest
trim—about 6 percent—and directs the agency to avoid closure of
any of its laboratories or cooperative research institutes. The
Senate, meanwhile, is set to consider a budget bill that would
maintain the current funding level at NOAA: about $6.1
billion.
A major boost for Central Valley livestock producers impacted
by recent floods and wildfires has been
announced. In an exclusive interview with the Deputy Secretary
of Agriculture Stephen Alexander, the USDA has announced it’s
offering $1 billion in disaster recovery assistance to eligible
livestock producers here in California. … The USDA says
dairy farmers in all Central Valley counties qualify and can
receive up to 60 percent of one month of calculated feed costs
for a qualifying wildfire or three months for a qualifying
flood.
On Wednesday, the Tahoe City Public Utility District celebrated
the Grand Opening of the West Lake Tahoe Regional Water
Treatment Plant. … The plant can currently deliver one
million gallons of water per day and may be further expanded to
reach more customers from Tahoma to Timberland. The utility
district stated that the approximately $30 million project was
made possible by grant funding as well as a loan from the CA
State Water Resources Control Board.
A proposal to build an asphalt plant at a longtime gravel
quarry in Forestville has set off a fierce local battle, with
more than 700 residents warning it could pollute
waterways, fuel wildfires and threaten
endangered species. The plant, planned at Canyon Rock — a
family-run quarry just west of Highway 116 — is still
years from a final vote. … But the fight is already playing
out in public meetings, letters to county supervisors and
dueling websites, as the quarry’s owners and a new community
group, Russian River Community Cares, push competing
narratives.
Gov. Gavin Newsom closed out the legislative year with one of
the most sweeping overhauls of California’s energy and climate
policies in decades — a package that could give him a
presidential debate-stage talking point on rising energy costs
as the Democratic Party shifts its focus to affordability. The
six-bill deal — passed Saturday after lawmakers extended their
session by an extra day because of last-minute dealmaking — was
sold as a way to ease gas prices and soaring electricity bills
while preserving the state’s signature climate programs.
… In collaboration with families who have long been connected
to this land, our research team at the University of
California, Davis is working to … help allottees access and
use their allotments. … [O]ur surveys of the vegetation on
these lands suggest that they could serve as places that
sustain both flora and fauna as the climate changes. … For
example, Indigenous communities have long used fire to tend
plants, reduce overgrowth, restore water
tables and generally keep ecosystems healthy.
If anyone needs another reason not to swim in Big Chico Creek
right now, it has turned brown. Opaque, murky water was present
on Friday in Big Chico Creek at Sycamore Pool and as far as
Forest Ranch after more than two months of a no-swim advisory,
placed on Big Chico Creek because of the presence of E. coli
that made five people sick this year. … The Chico Parks
Department’s best guess is that the turbidity is from runoff
caused by thunderstorm activity this week in the foothills.
People are still using more water than the Colorado River Basin
can supply, and it’s shrinking the water savings account for 40
million people, according to a new analysis from basin water
experts. The basin states, including Colorado, need to cut
their uses now, the experts said. Water stored in Lake Mead and
Lake Powell, the basin’s two largest reservoirs, could fall to
less than 4 million acre-feet of available water if the river’s
flows and water demands are repeated next year, according to a
report released Thursday by a team of Colorado River water
experts.
The city of Fresno, California, is asking the Supreme Court to
weigh in on its long-running battle with the Bureau of
Reclamation over the agency’s decision to halt water deliveries
during a multiyear drought, as local leaders and other
plaintiffs seek $350 million to repay the fair market value of
the lost water. The city, along with more than a dozen
irrigation districts and private landowners, is asking the
Supreme Court to accept a writ of certiorari and review its
case, which centers on the the federal government’s decision to
curtail water deliveries in 2014.
Late-night negotiations between Gov. Gavin Newsom and
Democratic leaders in the state Legislature produced a flurry
of agreements on Wednesday on pivotal climate and energy
programs. … Assembly Bill 1207 would extend
cap-and-invest through 2045. … [Senate Bill
237] would also remove regulatory and legal obstacles for
thousands of oil wells in Kern County by exempting them from a
final review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
… [Stanford Environmental and Natural Resources Law & Policy
Program Director Deborah A.] Sivas worried that more drilling
would lead to more abandoned wells that threaten to taint
water supplies.
Other California environmental and water policy news:
A bipartisan bill for weather research advanced out of the
House Science Committee on Wednesday by unanimous vote. The
Weather Act Reauthorization reaffirms and updates NOAA
research, forecasting, and emergency preparedness programs
authorized in the 2017 Weather Research and Forecasting
Innovation Act. The bill recommends between $160 million and
$170 million each year through 2030 for NOAA’s research office
to carry out specified weather research programs, roughly
steady with the program amounts for fiscal year 2024.
… The 2025 Southern California Community Water Systems Atlas,
produced by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and UC
Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, shows how
fragmented governance affects communities differently. The
atlas expands the scope of earlier UCLA studies to cover not
just Los Angeles County, but 663 systems across six counties:
Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and
Ventura. … The report and companion mapping tool provide the
most comprehensive public resource on water systems, shedding
light on disparities in water quality, affordability,
governance and climate resilience.
New data shows that a La Niña weather pattern is likely to
develop in a few weeks, potentially impacting the Bay Area and
California just at the start of the rainy season. The
National Weather Service says there is now a 71% chance of a La
Niña weather event in the Pacific Ocean starting in October.
… San Francisco sits at the inflection point for the
weather phenomenon’s effects, which means the region could see
either more rain or drier weather during the fall months if La
Niña arrives as predicted. … [C]urrent data points to a
weaker La Niña this fall, but that doesn’t necessarily mean
fewer big storms.
A major project aimed at improving flood management in the
Sacramento region faces a setback. The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers on Thursday confirmed a “differential settlement” on
the new weir extension, meaning that different parts of the
structure are sinking unevenly. … The new section of
weir would widen the structure by more than 1,500 feet and will
automatically allow water to pour over when river levels reach
a certain height. The Army Corps of Engineers said it expects
the analysis of the structure to be complete by the end of
September.
Invasive golden mussels may have been spotted in Butte County
last week, raising concerns about the potential impact on local
water resources. A recent watercraft inspection at the
Thermalito North Forebay prevented what is suspected to be the
invasive species from entering the water, marking only the
second time they have been seen at the site. … The
Oroville facilities, including the Thermalito Forebay,
Thermalito Afterbay, and Lake Oroville, supply water to roughly
23 million Californians.
Water officials in Tucson say the city has started receiving
settlement funds from a class action lawsuit against major
manufacturers of a firefighting foam that contains PFAS. The
human-made chemicals don’t break down naturally and are linked
to cancer and other health issues. A firefighting foam called
AFFF that contains PFAS has been used for decades at military
sites and airports — including in Tucson. The chemicals seeped
in groundwater and caused contamination.
The U.S. Department of the Interior is looking to overturn the
Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule in a move that
has environmental groups decrying it as a way to favor
extractive industries. … [The Federal Land Policy
and Management Act] tasked the bureau with managing the
following “principal or major” uses: recreation, range, timber,
minerals, watershed, wildlife, and fish and natural scenic,
scientific, and historical values. … In adding conservation
explicitly as a use, the Bureau’s Public Lands Rule also
formalized regulatory tools and frameworks for restoring
degraded public lands and water.
Keep Tahoe Blue, The Tyre Collective, and Desert Research
Institute (DRI) announced a groundbreaking collaboration with
the Emerald Bay Shuttle and its operator, Downtowner, that
brings together science, technology, and alternative
transportation to protect Lake Tahoe’s world-renowned water
clarity. … The pilot program employs The Tyre
Collective’s proprietary technology — discrete, compact devices
affixed to a vehicle’s undercarriage — to capture harmful tire
wear particles directly at the wheel.
The Trump administration’s top official in EPA’s land office is
focused on expediting Superfund hazardous waste remediation, in
part by loosening cleanup standards. “We need to make decisions
faster and move forward faster,” said Steven Cook, principal
deputy assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Land
and Emergency Management, during an American Bar Association
conference Thursday. That involves state leaders,
retraining project managers and rethinking acceptable cleanup
levels for dangerous chemicals at Superfund sites, Cook said.
… [Cristina] La’s master’s research was part of a
collaborative project focused on the Sacramento Deep Water Ship
Channel, one of the few remaining habitats for delta
smelt and longfin smelt. … The results were
striking: contaminants such as DDE, phenanthrene, fluoranthene,
pyrene and chrysene turned up in every sample, with the highest
concentrations in suspended solids. … The research team’s
findings suggest that fish like the delta smelt face their
greatest exposure in the water column — the vertical section of
water where they swim and feed — particularly when ship traffic
or storms stir up bottom sediments and release contaminated
particles into the water.
