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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A long-awaited Bay-Delta Plan is on track to be ready for
adoption this year, with possible refinements still under
review — but with no signs of major changes to the proposal as
released in December. Eric Oppenheimer, executive director of
the State Water Board, on Friday told The Sacramento Bee that
the board’s staff is reviewing thousands of public comments,
evaluating whether any updates to the proposed plan and
supporting environmental analysis are needed before bringing it
to the board for a final decision. “So far, based on what
we’ve seen … what we’ll be putting out is refinement to the
basin plan amendment language,” Oppenheimer said. … The
proposed Bay-Delta Plan has drawn divided reactions from
conservation groups and regional water agencies, with last
month’s three-day hearing underscoring those tensions.
Rainy conditions will pick up again across Northern California
this week, starting Monday night and lasting through Wednesday
morning. … The incoming rain will fall from a large
atmospheric river storm that will impact areas of Northern
California, including high elevations in the Sierra Nevada,
with its newly bolstered snowpack. … The Sierra snowpack has
the capacity to soak up the rain that does fall, which means
less risk of flooding. … Despite all the snow from last
week, much of the Sierra snowpack is still lower than average.
Swain said that while last week’s snowstorms helped, much of
the Western U.S. is starved for snow.
Other water supply and snowpack news around the West:
The Interior Department, which is in charge of the nation’s
public lands and waters, has completed a major scaling back of
its environmental regulations. The department, which also
oversees activities including drilling and mining on the
nation’s lands and in its waters, has rescinded more than 80
percent of its previous environmental regulations under the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Interior said in a
press release that its actions would be aimed at cutting down
delays and costs for energy, minerals, livestock grazing,
infrastructure, wildfire mitigation, water
projects and conservation efforts. … Critics
have argued that NEPA reviews are time-consuming and slow down
the development of the nation’s energy and infrastructure.
Supporters of robust reviews argue they are an important
guardrail for health and the environment.
As artificial intelligence drives the data center construction
boom, building one in Denver is poised to get more complicated
after Mayor Mike Johnston and members of the Denver City
Council announced plans to impose a moratorium on new
facilities. Under the plan, the city will review additional
data-center-specific regulations targeting “responsible land,
energy, and water use.” … “These (data center) projects
present new and complex issues that argue for better alignment
between Colorado’s economic development, energy, and water
strategies, particularly given the obvious impacts of
water scarcity in our region driven by climate
change,” Denver Water CEO and Manager Alan Salazar
said in a statement to The Denver Gazette.
Following the discovery of invasive zebra mussels in the
Colorado River last year, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is
working hard to prevent further contamination across the
state. Part of that is an ongoing effort in boat
inspections to prevent the spread of invasive aquatic species
including both zebra and quagga mussels. In 2025, CPW conducted
more than 438,000 such inspections at various bodies of water.
Officials say early detection of the invasive species was made
possible by increased staffing and upgraded lab facilities, but
the discovery on the Western Slope still set off alarm bells
because once adults are present in a reproductive state, they
have the ability to rapidly multiply and clog
infrastructure.
The North Fork of Matilija Creek and Bear Creek both run
through Wheeler Gorge Campground in the Los Padres National
Forest. … Four vehicle crossings through the campground
blocked endangered Southern California Steelhead from migrating
upstream as part of their ocean-to-freshwater stream spawning
process. A just-completed project that’s been in the works for
decades has removed the barriers. … It gives the migrating
steelhead access to an additional 13 miles of streams they
couldn’t reach for decades due to the barricades. There was
also a population of steelhead trout that was trapped, living
in creeks above the campground, which will now be able to
migrate south.
Yuba Water Agency and state officials reported encouraging
water-quality test results following the large pipe rupture at
the New Colgate Powerhouse in Yuba County. In a Friday news
release, the agency said samples collected downstream in the
Yuba River and at Englebright Lake showed no “concerning
results.” The initial testing found no detections of industrial
or petroleum-related contaminants, specifically polychlorinated
biphenyls, petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic
compounds, the agency said, adding that Yuba Water has been
taking samples from the Yuba River every day since the morning
after the rupture.
California State Parks is preparing a new general plan
for the Salton Sea State Recreation Area and is inviting
the public to participate in the process through a series of
workshops this month. … The general plan will establish
a long-term vision for the park, which has changed
significantly since the park was designated as a state
recreation area in 1963. … Declining water levels have
reshaped recreation opportunities at the park and impacted the
park’s ecosystem, leading to death of wildlife throughout the
past two decades. By creating a new general plan, California
State Parks is hoping to increase opportunities for land-based
recreation.
The Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear from oil
and gas companies trying to block lawsuits seeking to hold the
industry liable for billions of dollars in damage linked to
climate change. The conservative-majority court agreed to take
up a case from Boulder, Colorado. … Governments around the
country have sought damages totaling billions of dollars,
arguing it’s necessary to help pay for rebuilding after
wildfires, rising sea levels and severe storms
worsened by climate change. The lawsuits come amid a wave of
legal actions in California, Hawaii and New
Jersey and worldwide seeking to leverage action through the
courts. The case out of Boulder County will likely have
implications for other lawsuits.
New Mexico environment officials released data showing higher
levels of so-called “forever chemicals” in water systems across
the state ahead of hearings starting this week to write rules
for phasing out their use in makeup, upholstery, cooking gear
and more. The data, published Friday, showed 15 New Mexico
water systems … have PFAS levels exceeding federal drinking
water guidelines. … Despite the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency under the Trump Administration
delaying implementation of the tougher
standards until 2031, New Mexico is trying to address
current PFAS levels in smaller water systems.
The Middle Colorado Watershed Council (MCWC) announced its 2026
Fire and Water Speaker Series will begin Thursday, with
award-winning author and hydrologist Robert R. Crifasi
discussing how the history of water continues to shape current
geology, infrastructure, and legal systems. … When
setting out to write his second book, “Western Water A-Z,”
Crifasi said he wanted to create a sort of almanac explaining
the situation and history in layman’s terms. “I wanted to
create a guidebook to Western waters that someone could pick up
and bring on a road trip or down a river on a raft trip,”
Crifasi said. “I wanted them to be able to read it and have
more information about how all this stuff is going on and why.”
For almost a century, Hoover Dam has stood tall, delivering
water and reliable hydropower to cities throughout the American
West. But even the most impressive feats of human engineering
need maintenance — $200 million of it over the next decade, to
be exact, according to estimates from the Bureau of
Reclamation, the federal agency in charge of water and dams in
the West. … [Nev. Rep. Susie] Lee and Sen. Catherine
Cortez Masto, D-Nev., joined Colorado River Commission of
Nevada Chairwoman Puoy Premsrirut at a Lake Mead outlook Friday
to celebrate the release of $52 million to the Bureau of
Reclamation for necessary work.
A lawsuit brought by homebuilders to invalidate actions by the
state’s water department was back in court on Friday.
The outcome of the case could upend the state’s entire
groundwater protection framework. The lawsuit was
filed at the beginning of last year and stems from a report
Gov. Katie Hobbs’ administration released in 2023 showing
groundwater levels in the Phoenix metro area were unexpectedly
low. As a result, the Arizona Department of Water Resources
stopped granting certificates to developers that are required
to build new housing developments in parts of the Valley —
including Buckeye and Queen Creek. The Homebuilders Association
of Central Arizona argued in a hearing Friday that ADWR
illegally overstepped its authority with its response.
Colorado’s record-low snowpack is already raising concerns
about increased wildfire risk and water shortages this summer,
even as the mountains are still in the depths of winter.
Statewide, the snowpack levels are just 61% of median for this
time of year, and it would take consistent, record-breaking
snowfall for the rest of the season to reach normal peak
snowpack levels, according to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. … The Laramie-North Platte and
Colorado Headwaters river basins, which encompass much of
northwest Colorado, have some of the lowest streamflow
forecasts in the state, at 50% of 58% of normal, according to
the water supply outlook.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A Central Arizona Project-backed advocacy group called the
Coalition for Protecting Arizona’s Lifeline has begun rolling
out television ads and online videos defending the water
supplier’s rights to a Colorado River that is under serious
hydrological and political strain. … While the materials
don’t directly state members’ intended method of securing
water, some of the videos lean heavily on the so-called Law of
the River and its guarantee of water from the four headwaters
states to Arizona, California and Nevada. This theme reiterates
a point that CAP and Arizona water officials have stressed over
the last year or so, that if push comes to shove in a legal
battle, they have the 1922 Colorado River Compact on their
side.
A coalition of tribes and environmental advocates are calling
on the Delta Stewardship Council to reject the California
Department of Water Resources Certification of Consistency for
the proposed Delta Conveyance Project. “The coalition includes
the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, the Winnemem Wintu
Tribe, San Francisco Baykeeper, Center for Biological
Diversity, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Little
Manila Rising, Friends of the River, California Indian
Environmental Alliance, Sierra Club California and Restore the
Delta,” the coalition said in a statement. The group is holding
a virtual press conference on Wednesday to outline its legal
concerns. It is scheduled prior to the two-day Delta
Stewardship Council hearings to consider the
certification.
… The Central Arizona [Central Arizona Irrigation and
Drainage District] was one of 18 irrigation districts spread
across 12 western states initially selected to receive up to
$15 million each from the USDA. The agency’s Water-Saving
Commodities program also earmarked grants for three tribal
communities and two state associations of conservation
districts. … Beginning last January, the Trump administration
threw that into a tailspin. Federal monies were frozen, grant
programs culled, and an unprecedented number of federal
staffers were forced out of work. Many operations at USDA have
since resumed to some semblance of normalcy. But the $400
million promised to the irrigation districts, associations, and
tribes in 2024 remains unaccounted for, and the grant
recipients have received no indication of whether the program
would start or the money would be paid out.
The data from documents released [Feb. 19] by the Pacific
Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) reveals salmon
returns to California’s Central Valley in 2025 were much
improved over the previous two years. … The number
of returning jacks is key to forecasting the number of adult
salmon that are in the ocean every year. This ocean abundance
forecast is used to determine the number of salmon that can be
caught by the ocean commercial and recreational salmon
fisheries and the in-river recreational and tribal fisheries
while allowing enough salmon to escape harvest to spawn in the
Central Valley rivers. The abundance estimate should become
available by February 25 when CDFW will hold its annual one day
salmon information meeting to update the public.
The boss of Santa Clara County’s largest water supplier is
stepping down — and officials will keep paying him for a year
without disclosing what they discovered in a misconduct probe
against him. Valley Water CEO Rick Callender is resigning
effective March 1 after more than a year-long investigation
into misconduct allegations by an employee, which one board
director has said involves sexual harassment. The board of
directors announced Callender’s resignation at a special
meeting Friday, but said nothing about the misconduct probe or
what they found. Officials have not disclosed the nature of the
employee misconduct complaint.
In the cool dawn of a February morning, a crew is assembling to
do maintenance work on a water canal in Tempe. This crew will
spend the rest of its life in the canal, removing the plants
that stop water from flowing. That’s because the workers aren’t
human — they’re fish. The Salt River Project, which operates
this canal, estimates that about 44,000 of these fish live in
its canal system. This morning, it’s adding about 1,000 more.
The fish are a species of carp called white amur. They’re
native to Asia and especially adept at eating the aquatic
vegetation that grows along the walls of the canal. Those
plants can slow down the water and make it harder to send to
faraway users of the canal or gum up the intakes that divert
water in different directions.
