A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.
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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.
… The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the
river under the Department of the Interior, last week released
a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for
managing the river, but imposes no specific long-term plan. …
The federal government plans to roll out more detailed
management plans every two years if the states continue their
impasse. The agency will release the first of those
plans any day, imposing cuts in the downstream states
of California, Arizona and Nevada — an estimated 10% cut to
California’s supply through 2028, or roughly 440,000 acre-feet
a year. No mandatory cuts are expected in the upper basin
states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, according to
those involved in negotiations. … This isn’t the
long-term plan that California’s water suppliers were hoping
for.
Kevin Clyde’s mind is always in the clouds. As a water district
board member in southeastern Utah, he’s constantly checking a
patch of sky near the La Sal Mountains. He swears he’s seen
more wisps of white near a new cloud seeding station in the
area — one that, he hopes, has prompted more rain and snow in
his region. … These stations aim to increase rain and
snow by shooting charged ions into the sky, as opposed
to the better-known method of shooting chemicals out of a
plane. It’s a new approach to cloud seeding, aka weather
modification, which dates back to the early 1900s and
manipulates clouds to drop more precipitation. … But the
ion stations have also sparked skepticism from some
researchers, who say industry is too far ahead of the science.
And it raises the question of whether unproven technologies are
raising false hope for communities frantic for water.
Growing more drought-tolerant crops could be an option for San
Joaquin Valley farmers facing severe groundwater cutbacks,
according to two joint studies by the Public Policy Institute
of California (PPIC). The studies looked at growing
winter crops or forage using less water as an economic
alternative to straight out fallowing ground. “This is
not a solution or means of (groundwater) demand reductions, but
a way to make that fallowing less bad,” Caitlin Peterson, PPIC
Associate Director and one of the authors of the studies, told
SJV Water. “How can we still achieve that reduction in pumping
but not reduce productivity?” The studies looked at
types of crops that could be grown with much less water
and the economic viability of those crops.
Senate Democrats are urging the Trump administration to
reconsider plans to repeal drinking water limits for some
“forever chemicals” and delay compliance deadlines for others,
arguing that the changes contradict prior EPA findings. In a
letter Tuesday to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, 26 Democrats
said the proposed changes to a Biden-era drinking water
regulation for the harmful chemicals could violate the
Safe Drinking Water Act and aren’t supported by
science. “EPA has repeatedly stated that protecting
Americans from PFAS is a top priority,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Yet these proposed rollbacks move in the opposite direction.”
Known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, “forever
chemicals” have been widely used by the military and in
consumer products because of their extreme resistance to heat,
water and oil.
Wildfire is reshaping the forests of California’s Sierra Nevada
and affecting the water those forests supply to downstream
users. A paper published in Hydrology and Earth System
Science reports that the effect of wildfire on potential
runoff from the state’s main water-supply watersheds has
increased in the period 1985-2023, most markedly since 2019. To
measure how much water forests use, researchers from UC Merced,
UC Berkeley and UC Irvine used data on evapotranspiration, the
measure of water evaporating from soil and released by plants.
… The researchers found that by 2023, the cumulative burned
area,about one-fifth of the total watershed, resulted
in a potential runoff increase of about 740,000 acre-feet per
year, or about 5.4 percent of the combined average
full-natural flow from these basins.
The Butte County Water Commission will discuss what the process
would be if there was a proposal to build an AI data center in
Butte County at its meeting Wednesday afternoon. The
agenda item has sparked controversy on social media over the
last couple of days, with some urging public participation to
express opposition. The county responded with a statement
clarifying that it has not received an application or
development proposal for a center. The county said the
commission requested a general discussion to better understand
the process for what would happen if a proposal was submitted.
… Butte County says the commission’s discussion
will provide an overview of how AI data centers would
impact water usage.
Malicious cyber activity has affected technology at water
systems in at least seven states last week, forcing some
facilities to switch to manual operations and prompting the FBI
and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to warn facilities
nationwide of hackers. … United States water systems are a
part of critical infrastructure in the country, which makes
them attractive targets for cyberattacks. The EPA has warned in
recent years that a significant number of local water systems
had critical or high-risk vulnerabilities, including “outdated
software, poor network security, weak access controls, and a
lack of employee cybersecurity training.” But it has also
indicated that it’s up to individual operators to protect their
own systems from external threats. An EPA spokesperson pointed
TIME to Administrator Lee Zeldin’s comments on FOX on Saturday,
where he called on utility operators and local entities to
protect themselves.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency cuts its workforce
without assessing how that would impact disaster response and
recovery, the Government Accountability Office determined in a
report published Tuesday. Despite previous reports that
staffing shortages have impeded past recovery efforts, FEMA in
2025 and 2026 pushed staffers to take voluntary separation
incentives like the deferred resignation program and fired new
and recently promoted employees who were still in their
probationary periods. Ultimately, GAO found that about 17%
of FEMA’s workforce, more than 4,300 employees, separated in
fiscal 2025 and that, as of April, the agency employed nearly
21,000 staffers. … “We found no evidence that DHS and
FEMA leadership assessed whether the nonrenewal of CORE
employees’ contracts in January 2026 would affect FEMA’s
ability to respond to disasters,” investigators wrote.
State regulators will consider escalating enforcement this week
against a landowner accused of years of illegal dumping,
grading and unmanaged cattle grazing along Little River, where
fecal bacteria levels have remained high for more than a
decade. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board
will meet on Thursday in Crescent City to decide whether to
refer the case to the California Attorney General’s Office, a
rare step that could lead to judicial civil enforcement after
years of violation notices and warnings. … Little River,
which flows directly into Moonstone Beach, has been listed as
an impaired water body under Section 303(d) since 2015 due to
fecal pathogens. The designation requires state regulators to
identify pollution sources and develop a plan to reduce
contamination.
Arizona’s largest and most senior water rights holder says it
was left out of final discussions about the federal
government’s proposed plan to deal with ongoing water shortages
in the Colorado River. The plan, issued by the Bureau of
Reclamation on July 31, outlines several alternative paths to
preserving water levels in the Colorado’s two major reservoirs,
lakes Mead and Powell. … The Colorado River
Indian Tribes submitted a letter to the
bureau Aug. 2 outlining its concerns. CRIT holds
themost senior tribal water rights on the
lower river and 23% of Arizona’s entire allocation of the
Colorado. The tribe said Reclamation had shared
documents regarding the process to publish the final
environmental impact statement with the seven basin states but
did not extend that same courtesy to the tribe.
A federal judge on Monday opted to impose no restrictions on
operations for a massive California water conveyance system,
determining environmental groups failed to meet their burden.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston wrote that the Center for
Biological Diversity and other plaintiffs must make a
heightened showing before she will issue a preliminary
injunction over the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s operation of
Shasta Dam and Reservoir this summer and fall. … The
groups argued the bureau’s operation of the Central Valley
Project, including Shasta Dam, and California’s State Water
Project failed to comply with a 2024 biological opinion
issued under the Endangered Species Act. They asked
the Joe Biden appointeeto reduce water releases from Shasta and
require the government to adopt a new operating plan.
The Trump administration has ordered construction crews on a
border wall to stop drilling wells in drought-stricken New
Mexico after ranchers saidpumping
groundwater needed to make concrete could threaten their
livestock. The order comes as crews across the
southern border race to complete one of President Donald
Trump’s highest domestic priorities — barriers that span four
states and received over $46 billion in federal funding.
Controversies have sprouted up in Texas and
California, with border-town residents and
environmentalists reporting a wide variety of issues with
construction. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which
oversees border wall construction, has said water is
needed to make concrete for roads, wall construction and dust
suppression. Cattle ranchers in the area say
the drought has already forced them to reduce their
herd size.
California’s once exponentially growing population of invasive
mute swans has fallen by half, less than a year after a new law
took effect allowing hunters and landowners to kill
them. Over the objections of animal welfare groups, Gov.
Gavin Newsom last year signed legislation allowing property
owners and those with hunting licenses to shoot the nonnative,
destructive swans. The mute swan population had ballooned to
about 15,000, most around the Suisun Marsh on the outskirts of
the Bay Area. … Wetland ecologists and waterfowl biologists
say they represent a profound threat to the struggling
wetlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. … As their numbers grow, they can
quickly eat through a marsh’s submerged native vegetation on
which other species rely.
Late last week, federal authorities issued a stern warning
saying “malicious cyber actors” were targeting water and
wastewater facilities in at least seven states across the US.
Minnesota appeared to be the hardest hit with 30 of its water
systems hit by cyber-attacks, leading to disruptions in the
state’s water supply. … The [US Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security] agency highlighted the fact that
critical infrastructure systems can be especially vulnerable to
cyber-attacks in the digital age. Much of the problem stemmed
from water facilities’ connection to the internet, which made
it possible for hackers to infiltrate, change passwords and
lock out operators. To mitigate continued disturbances,
the agency advised utilities to take their systems offline and
switch to manual mode.
A restoration project underway in California’s High Sierra is
aiming to strengthen the state’s water supply by bringing a
damaged mountain meadow system back to life. Crews are
restoring nearly three miles of the West Walker River and
surrounding floodplains at Pickel Meadow, located north
of Yosemite. The project focuses on restoring the
natural flow of water through the meadow, allowing it
to better absorb snowmelt and gradually release water into
rivers and streams. … Matt Freitas, California
headwaters program director for American Rivers, said
these mountain ecosystems play a critical role in the
state’s water future. “Maybe only 2% to 3% of the
Sierra is mountain meadows, but they store a lot of water,”
Freitas said. “They help clean that water and help release that
water downstream during periods of low flow and
drought.”
Aurora Water doesn’t much care which two days in a week you
water your lawn, amid this historic drought. But if your
irrigation system starts up on a third day in the same week,
the water world equivalent of a Flock camera is watching. The
“smart” meters on every Aurora property automatically sense a
spike in water use, and alert Aurora Water to confirm the
violation and send out a warning or fine. With updates at
15-minute intervals, the meters also detect irrigation watering
during hot daytime hours when that’s against the
rules. The water surveillance, which Aurora Water
officials acknowledge many of their customers might not realize
exists, is one key to Colorado’s third-largest city so
far achieving its water-saving goals in a year with record-low
snowpack and abysmal streamflows into mountain
reservoirs.
Modesto officials have received initial contact from NorthPoint
Development, a leading developer of data centers in the nation.
NorthPoint’s name is associated with the former FMC plant site
in Modesto and the company has inquired about putting a data
center at that location. … According to Facebook posts
last week by Modesto Councilman Chris Ricci, NorthPoint, based
in Kansas City, proposed talks with council members about a
small data center here. … Ricci said in a text he has
serious concerns about the impacts of data centers on the
community, ranging from high-volume water use for
cooling operations and energy consumption, which could
lead to higher electric rates for residents. According MOST
Policy Institute, citing an EPA study, data centers
used 17.4 billion gallons of water in 2023.
A burst pipe in Beverly Grove sent water flowing down the
street on Sunday morning, threatening parked vehicles and
forcing some water services in the area to be shut off. Crews
from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power responded to
a broken pipe around 6 a.m. near the intersection of San
Vicente Boulevard and Lindenhurst Avenue. … The flooding
follows several other burst pipes in the Los Angeles area in
recent weeks. On July 16, a major water main break in West
Hollywood forced the closure of a section of Sunset Boulevard
and displaced some residents. … In 2019, LADWP said
roughly 29% of the city’s pipes were over 80 years old, nearing
their typical 100-year lifespan.
California’s water touches nearly every part of daily life, but
most people never stop to think about where it comes from. From
mountain snowpack to vast reservoirs and underground aquifers,
the state’s water travels an extraordinary journey before
reaching homes, businesses, and farms. In this explainer, we’ll
break down the complex system that delivers water across
California, including the rivers, aqueducts, and infrastructure
that move billions of gallons each year. Along the way, you’ll
learn why geography, climate, and careful management all play a
role in keeping water flowing.
The Trump administration has released its long-awaited 10-year
plan for dealing with worsening water shortages along the
Colorado River. Instead of ordering the most drastic water
cutbacks it could have imposed, the administration chose to
take more of a wait-and-see approach. The plan allows for steep
water cuts if they’re deemed necessary, requiring California,
Arizona and Nevada to cut up to 3 million acre-feet per year —
as much as 40% of the combined allotments. But as The
Times reported last week, state and local officials
say for the first two years, the Trump administration is
accepting an offer the three states made to reduce what they
take from the river by about half that amount.
… While the three lower basin states shoulder
the burden for now, “the only sustainable path is with
the seven states and Mexico all participating,” said Bill
Hasencamp, MWD’s manager of Colorado River resources.
“We can’t do it alone.”
