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.
Please Note:
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.
A major storm blanketed Sierra peaks in feet of snow
over Presidents Day weekend. And even more is on the
way, with two to four more feet due by Wednesday morning,
according to Chronicle meteorologists. … UC
Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, located at
Donner Summit, tallied 37.5 inches in the two days leading up
to Tuesday morning. Over 28 inches fell in the past day
alone. … This week’s storms are good news for
California water supplies. According to the California
Department of Water Resources, the statewide snowpack is 59% of
normal for this time of year, as of Tuesday.
A letter from California Governor Gavin Newsom to his fellow
governors in states along the Colorado River is offering
support for a multi-state solution to managing the water supply
for 40 million people. But it’s a paragraph tucked in that
letter, obtained by FOX 13 News, that has reliably red state
Utah leaders praising their blue state counterparts. … [T]he
letter praised Utah Governor Spencer Cox for an idea that has
been pushed by state political leaders for years now — the
notion of trading Colorado River water shares for money for
desalination plants.
Keeping on the state’s good side was paramount in the decision
by a southwestern Kings County groundwater agency to cut
pumping allocations to less than one acre foot per acre of
land. The new allocation was one of a flurry of policies
enacted by the Southwest Kings Groundwater Sustainability
Agency (GSA) over the last few weeks, after the GSA had not met
in six months. Effective immediately, growers in Southwest
Kings will only be allowed to pump .66 acre feet per acre.
Growers who go over that amount will be fined $500 per acre
foot over the allotment starting Oct. 1, according to the
policy approved by the board at its Feb. 13 meeting.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla announced Tuesday that he and Sen. Adam
Schiff secured $54 million in federal funding for the Pajaro
River Flood Risk Management Project, aimed at strengthening
flood protection for Watsonville and Pajaro. The funding will
go toward reconstructing failing levees along the Pajaro River
and its tributaries in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties,
according to Padilla’s office. The project is intended to
reduce flood risk for residents, businesses and infrastructure
in the low-lying communities. … Problems with the aging
levee have plagued the region for years, overtopping its banks
and allowing devastating floods in 1955, 1995 and 1997. Some
3,000 properties lie in the floodplain.
… On Tuesday, she [Rep. Tomi Strock] presented House Bill 116
to the [Wyo.] House Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water
Resources Committee, calling it “a clear Wyoming first water
protection bill.” … The bill, sponsored by the Select
Water Committee, declares that splitting water molecules to
industrially produce hydrogen “shall not constitute a
beneficial use of water” — the foundational legal standard
governing every water right in Wyoming. The committee passed it
8-1. … State Engineer Brandon Gebhart told the committee
that if the bill’s declaration that water-splitting is not a
beneficial use remains in place, his office would have no
ability to permit the process under any circumstance —
including with wastewater or produced water from oil and gas
operations.
Construction on a long-stalled, $13 million project that would
make recreation along the San Joaquin River more accessible to
cars and foot traffic is scheduled to begin later this year,
Fresno officials said Tuesday. The river, a public space, is
considered a potential economic driver for the Fresno area that
could improve residents quality of life and draw more visitors.
But many properties in the San Joaquin River Parkway, a
collection of public green spaces planned to stretch from
Friant Dam to Highway 99, remain either closed to the general
public or difficult to access by vehicle or even on foot.
The Arvin-Edison Water Storage District and Wheeler
Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District boards both agreed
recently to spend $2.5 million and $2 million, respectively, on
efforts to rid their systems of invasive golden
mussels. At its Feb. 10 meeting, Arvin-Edison’s Resource
Manager Samuel Blue laid out a two-phase attack against the
mussels. First, Blue plans to start with a chemical treatment
called Natrix CA in March, when there is less water demand by
district farmers and the temperatures are cooler. The mussels
are more active in warmer water, Blue explained. He hoped the
treatment would kill off 90%, or more, of the adult golden
mussels.
Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of juvenile Chinook salmon
were found dead in the lower Yuba River after a large water
pipe burst at the New Colgate Powerhouse on Friday, according
to a local conservation group. Aaron Zettler-Mann, executive
director of South Yuba River Citizens League, explained that
flows on the lower Yuba River briefly fell following the
rupture, stranding young salmon in the rocks along the shore.
… Carson Jeffres, a senior researcher at UC Davis’
Center for Watershed Sciences, said Friday’s rapid drop in
flows and resulting salmon deaths are unlikely to wipe out the
Yuba’s runs, thanks to several recent wet years and a strong
return of adult salmon.
San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre is inviting the
candidates for Governor of California to tour the Tijuana River
Valley and surrounding communities. Katie Porter accepted that
invitation, and on Tuesday morning, she and Aguirre met with
community leaders at a cafe in Imperial Beach, where beaches
have been closed for more than 1,200 consecutive days due to
the pollution that comes in from south of the border.
… Porter said, if elected governor of California, she
would declare a state of emergency clearing the way for federal
and state money to be delivered for mitigation programs in the
Valley and in communities affected by the contamination.
Arizona is engaged in a debate about where data centers should
be built — with cities, developers and residents having varying
opinions on the issue. So how do we find common ground? That
was the driving force behind a Feb. 11 standing-room-only
knowledge exchange. … It’s tough to estimate how
much water data centers use for cooling, said Sarah Porter,
director of ASU’s Kyl Center for Water Policy. But power
generation for all users — not just data centers — makes up 3%
of the state’s water demand. … If future data centers
build outside cities with assured water supply designations,
she warned, they could pump groundwater without replenishing
what they use — and that could hurt rural areas that already
lack secure water supplies.
Seven years after publicly announcing plans for a huge
land-based fish production facility on the Samoa Peninsula,
Nordic Aquafarms quietly abandoned the project
altogether. Last month, Nordic CEO Charles Hostlund
submitted paperwork to formally dissolve the company’s
California-based affiliate. … Operations would have
required more than 10 million gallons of seawater per day, plus
roughly 2 million gallons per day of fresh water, which the
Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District (HBMWD) had agreed to
provide. That agency has been in need of an industrial-scale
customer since the pulp mills shut down, given California’s
“use it or lose it” system of allocating water rights.
The seven Western states that rely on water from the Colorado
River have run out of time for compromise to share its
dwindling supplies, just as new projections show reservoir
levels could sink to a critical low by the end of this year.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Saturday that the states
had missed a Valentine’s Day deadline to reach consensus on a
plan to guide use of the river over the coming decades. He said
the federal Bureau of Reclamation would instead soon impose its
own plan. … He acknowledged it may be difficult for states to
cooperate without taking disagreements to court. That could
eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court.
… Data provided by the US Department of Agriculture show
that as of February 12, snowpack was at less than half
its normal level in areas across nine Western
states—some of the lowest levels seen in decades. It’s
common for a particular basin or small area of the West to have
low snowpack at this time of year. What’s worrisome, [UC ANR
scientist Daniel] Swain says, is how widespread the snow
drought is, stretching in a swath from the bottom of Washington
to much of Arizona and New Mexico, and touching as far east as
Colorado. … Much of the water supply for the West, including
the crucial Colorado River Basin, is set during the winter.
Snowpack that accumulates in the cold months melts in the
spring; in years with healthy snowpack levels, that water makes
its way into streams and reservoirs. Current conditions pose a
threat to this dynamic.
… The [Delta] conveyance system is one of California’s
largest proposed public infrastructure projects in a
generation, a 45-mile underground tunnel that would siphon
water from an inland network of rivers and farming islands
between Sacramento County in the north and Contra Costa County
in the south. … Southern and Central California water
districts want the tunnel to move more fresh water to their
agriculture and Los Angeles-area customers. … DTEC [Delta
Tribal Environmental Coalition] — already concerned about large
water exports shipped through existing pumps from the Delta —
worries the $20-billion project will wreak havoc on the plants
and wildlife of the estuary and its connected rivers.
Federal water managers say the level of Lake Powell could fall
to historic lows by the end of the year amid worsening drought
conditions across the Colorado River Basin. The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation’s newest 24-month study predicts that by December
the lake could, for the first time, fall to 3,490 feet, or
“minimum power pool,” the lowest level at which Glen Canyon Dam
can produce electricity. In addition, if dry conditions persist
officials say by March 2027, Powell could drop to 3,476
feet—the lowest level on record since the lake was filled
decades ago, possibly limiting the dam’s ability to release
water.
The Water Education Foundation Board of Directors elected two
new members, expanding its Colorado River Basin representation
and adding an environmental representative. The new
members joining the board in 2026 are: Andy Mueller,
an attorney who serves as the general manager of the Colorado River
Water Conservation District based in Glenwood
Springs, Colo., and Camila
Bautista, the Salton Sea and desert program
manager with Audubon California who represents the 2025 Water
Leaders cohort on the Board for a three-year term. In addition,
Andrea
Abergel, manager of water policy for the
California Municipal Utilities Association who joined the board
in 2023 for a three-year term as a member of the 2022 Water
Leaders cohort, was voted in as a full board member.
Authorities continue to work to contain a spill of oil and
debris in the Yuba River after a penstock burst on Friday at
the New Colgate Powerhouse, the Yuba Water Agency’s main
hydroelectric facility south of Dobbins. An oil sheen was
discovered in the river Sunday where it meets with Englebright
Lake, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced.
… A crew composed of CDFW personnel and members of the
Office of Spill Prevention and Response assessed the Yuba River
along the Nevada-Yuba county line. As of Sunday, the crew had
not observed any visibly oiled wildlife. Crews continued
assessing the area Monday.
… The Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project, a joint
effort of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Pajaro
Regional Flood Management Agency, was created in 2021 and seeks
to both better protect homes and cede some of the historic
floodplain back to the river. One solution has been to knock
down old levees and construct new ones further from the
riverbed — in some areas, more than a football field’s length
away. Besides flood protection, the expanded riverbanks
are designed to provide new habitat for riparian plants and
animals, and let water seep into the soil to replenish
groundwater aquifers. Groundwater basins in the county,
including the Mid-County and Pajaro Valley basins are
critically overdrafted and at risk of saltwater intrusion if
not refilled.
The cold, crystalline waters of Blue Creek — a refuge for
salmon and a place of cultural importance to the Yurok Tribe —
cut through bedrock and over tumbled-smooth gray stones until
they empty into the Klamath River in Northern California. Last
summer, 14,000 acres encompassing the Blue Creek watershed were
returned to the tribe. This transfer concluded the last phase
of the largest tribal land return in California history,
amounting to 47,100 acres of land previously used by timber
companies. Twenty-three years in the making, it was achieved in
partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy, which bought the
land in phases and turned it over to the Yurok Tribe. The
return more than doubles current landholdings for the tribe,
which was dispossessed of more than 90% of its ancestral lands
by colonizers.
Just east of the Harbor Freeway, in the middle of an industrial
area of Carson, lies a 17-acre haven for birds, ducks, plants
and other wildlife. The Bixby Marsh is a wetland that’s home to
110 different plant species, 69 bird species and other animals,
including more than 40% of them federally listed endangered and
threatened species, according to a fact sheet about the marsh.
The marsh was once threatened by development and other
challenges. But now, thanks to ongoing efforts by the Los
Angeles County Sanitation Districts, the wetland is thriving.
… The marshland is not just a refuge for the local community
and wildlife — but also a water filtration system for the area.
When water flows into the marshland, the environment naturally
cleans the water of sediments before it flows out to the local
Wilmington Drain.
