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 huge inland body of water that is the heart of California’s
water system is under major stress. That’s why state officials
say they worked for years to come up with a plan to help halt
the ecological decline of the San Francisco Bay and
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Now that plan is
under attack from the Trump administration and the largest
irrigation authority in the Central Valley. In a letter,
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says California’s plan
for the Delta will shortchange farmers by restricting how much
water the federal government pumps from the state’s largest
rivers. The letter says the plan threatens the “entire
fabric of California’s agricultural economy.”
The drama engulfing the seven states in the Colorado River
Basin could take another, more perilous, turn in a few weeks.
Water experts are warning that by October, the river’s
flow may cross a critical threshold at Lee’s Ferry, a
bend in the river in Arizona that has been a bellwether of the
river’s health for decades. The 1922 Colorado River Compact —
the river’s foundational agreement — states that the river’s
flow must stay above a certain level at Lee’s Ferry in order to
provide enough water for downstream states. If the flow
falls below that point, which some experts equate to a
“tripwire,” it could trigger prolonged and expensive
litigation at the Supreme Court, a turning point that
could have terrible consequences for basin states.
The sea level along California’s coast will increase by
about a foot by mid-October due to the influence of El
Niño, which is driving a large volume of water
northward from offshore of Mexico and Central America. This
water is coming in the form of a coastal “Kelvin wave,” and it
will mark the arrival of one of the first significant impacts
of the powerhouse El Niño taking shape in the tropical Pacific.
… Patrick Barnard, research director at the Center for
Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, said the ocean height increase puts many
coastal residents at risk of flooding. “Because so
many of our communities are built right at sea level on the
West Coast, and our extreme water levels don’t vary widely,
every 2 to 4 inches of sea level doubles our flood risk,”
Barnard said.
Turn on a hose in Denver this summer and the
water likely flows from the Strontia Springs
Reservoir. The small manmade lake in the mountains
just west of downtown stores the state’s precious snowmelt and
distributes it through the dry months, when rain grows scarce
and farmers are irrigating frantically. But over its 44 years,
Strontia has lost much of its ability to store water.
The reservoir is now almost one-fifth full of sediment
— sand, silt and mud. Most of the country’s 90,000 or
so storage reservoirs are facing a similar problem. These dams
are in a self-propelling sediment loop. Climate change is
exacerbating drought and wildfires, destroying plants that hold
soil in place. … The country has lost an
estimated 8% of its water storage capacity, the
equivalent of 25.5 million Olympic-size swimming pools,
according to a study published this week in Nature.
A long-running effort to better protect Trinity River
salmon while supporting tribal fishing traditions is
entering a new phase this fall, as the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife and the Hoopa Valley Tribe begin
operating a single, jointly run fish weir for monitoring and
harvest. The Bureau of Reclamation joined its partners
for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the consolidation,
which is intended to strengthen collaboration, improve the
efficiency of Trinity River restoration monitoring, and reduce
stress on salmon migrating upriver to spawn. CDFW Director
Meghan Hertel said the department and the Hoopa Valley Tribe
have worked for more than a decade to resolve the issue
of operating two separate weirs and bring the work together at
one location.
Creekstone Energy, the company behind a huge data center campus
being built near Delta in Millard County, has announced that
it’s in the process of patenting a “revolutionary
technology” that can turn natural gas into
water. The new technology — which the developer
said can capture water vapor from the exhaust of Creekstone’s
own natural-gas-powered electricity generation and convert it
into water — has been named GIGAWATER, which the company said
is the “centerpiece” of its Project Oasis initiative at
the Delta Gigasite campus. … Conley believes
the new water could potentially be used for a variety
of purposes: irrigation, agriculture, geothermal
energy cycles, and potentially — if it’s filtered — potable
water.
Aaron Baker, a 25-year veteran of the Santa Clara Valley Water
District, on Tuesday was named CEO by the agency’s board,
taking the helm of Silicon Valley’s largest water district
after a year of political turmoil and as a winter looms that
could be marked by extreme weather due to very strong El Niño
conditions. Also known as “Valley Water,” the district, based
in San Jose, is a government agency that provides drinking
water and flood protection to 2 million people in Santa Clara
County. … Baker’s position as CEO begins Jan. 4. He will
succeed interim CEO Melanie Richardson, who came out of
retirement from the district last year following the
administrative leave and then resignation of former CEO
Rick Callender.
A year ago, Lee Zeldin, head of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), visited the Tijuana River, one
of the nation’s most polluted rivers, and vowed to act
urgently to stop the crisis. Now, the federal agency is
committing to bringing the same sense of urgency to
another heavily polluted river more than 100 miles east of the
San Diego-Mexico border in Imperial Valley. “Our
commitment here to you is that we’re here to do the same,” Mike
Martucci, acting regional administrator for EPA’s Region 9,
said at a recent roundtable in Calexico. The agency and the
U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) hosted
the meeting last month to announce their latest efforts to stop
the decades-long, cross-border problem.
Katie Hobbs and Andy Biggs, the Democrat and Republican
nominees for governor, have wildly different plans for
Arizona’s water future. That means the choice voters make this
November will point the state in one of two approaches when it
comes to managing the state’s water supply: conservation or
augmentation. Whichever candidate wins will have a great deal
of control over Arizona’s water future over the next four years
— including representing the state in the next round of
Colorado River negotiations in 2028. The governor also
directs the state Department of Water Resources, and has the
power to accept or reject water-related state legislation
coming out of the state Legislature.
… Industry leaders and experts point to a variety of reasons
for the decline of small farms in California, including water
shortages, labor challenges and real estate costs. … The
future concern for farmers is groundwater management
regulations. Historically, farmers have turned to groundwater
during droughts. The state largely ignored the practice and
allowed for critical overdrafts of the aquifer, causing parts
of the state to sink, a process called subsidence. The state
began to rein in the practice of overdraft with the passage of
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014, which
required new local agencies to develop groundwater management
plans. The agencies can restrict pumping, impose fees and
require meters.
State agencies spent Labor Day weekend inspecting more than
9,000 boats, kayaks, paddleboards and other watercraft to
prevent the spread of invasive species. The watercraft
inspections are designed to keep harmful organisms like quagga
mussels or Eurasian watermilfoil from spreading between water
bodies. In all 9,418 watercraft were inspected — 440 of them at
Lake Powell — and 154 decontaminated between Friday and Monday,
according to a news release. Lake Powell is currently the only
area in the state with a quagga mussel outbreak.
The California State Water Resources Control Board is
rightfully turning attention back to how much water
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power should take
from the Mono Lake Basin. As climate change puts more pressure
on water resources, it’s high time to reconsider that question.
Los Angeles’ appropriation of water from remote places like
Mono Lake is the desert metropolis’ original sin, with
existential consequences for rural parts of the state. But in
recent commitments to double down on municipal water
reclamation, the city has made brave decisions to shift toward
greater water security and stewardship. –Written by Erin Ryan, the Charles and Ramona
Hilliard Professor of Law at the University of Southern
California’s Gould School of Law and the author of “Law for the
Land: The Public Trust Doctrine, Mono Lake, and a Quiet
Revolution in Environmental Rights.”
As the city of Los Angeles and the L.A. Department of Water and
Power face lawsuits by residents who claim the city
failed to ensure adequate water to fight the Palisades
fire, California legislators have passed a bill that
would give water agencies a new tool to defend themselves in
such cases. The legislation, Senate Bill 1153, would clarify
that public water agencies do not have a duty to
design, build or maintain a water system for wildfire defense
or suppression, and that the inability to maintain
water supply or water pressure during a wildfire is not a
“substantial cause” of fire damages. The bill, which
is awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature,
also would require urban retail water suppliers in high or very
high fire hazard zones to include specific response procedures
for wildfires as part of their disaster preparedness plans.
… [F]or the last three years, the seven states have been
negotiating a new set of rules for sharing a dwindling supply
of water before current ones expire in December. But
the public has had little view inside the negotiating
rooms. … KUNC requested work calendars for the
seven negotiators earlier this year. The information wasn’t
always easy to find. Some states – Arizona, New Mexico and Utah
– were either not responsive to the requests or their state
offices said they didn’t hold the records. Colorado would have
charged about $280 for the documents. … States have said
this closed-door process is needed to reach a deal —
and it’s worked in the past. But this time, it hasn’t.
The tension has only grown.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has “serious concerns” about the
draft Bay Delta Plan. “The Bureau of
Reclamation writes to express its serious concern with the
State Water Resources Control Board’s August 2026 Draft Water
Quality Control Plan for the Bay-Delta. The Draft Plan, as
written, threatens reliability of water supplies that
support not only the Central Valley Project, but the entire
fabric of California’s agricultural economy, rural
communities, urban centers, and natural vitality,” the letter
states. … The federal agency also states that the plan does
“not honor” an agreement reached in 2022. … The letter also
challenges the plan’s regulation of federal reservoirs through
storage targets, decision-making authority and other elements.
“Reclamation cannot support or participate in a process that
disregards federal law, undermines negotiated certainty, and
threatens the viability of the CVP,” the letter states.
A proposal to fund a state drinking water program that has been
a lifeline for communities in the San Joaquin
Valley at $171 million passed by the Legislature
Tuesday after a harrowing few days and now awaits Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s signature. The proposal is supported by a broad
coalition of organizations, some of which typically find
themselves on opposite sides of most issues. But they came
together to protect the Safe and Affordable Fund for Equity and
Resilience (SAFER), which pays for emergency supplies
when homes, and even whole towns, go dry and funds
efforts to find long-term water solutions.
A broad new water conservation law will soon take effect in
phases, banning the watering of “ornamental turf” at corporate,
industrial, government and homeowners association properties
with drinking water across California as a way to preserve
supplies. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new state law in 2023 as
California was emerging from a harsh three-year drought.
Starting on Jan. 1, it will be illegal for local and regional
government agencies across the state — including schools,
cities, counties, courthouses, fire stations and libraries — to
irrigate decorative grass with potable water whether or not
California is in a drought. Enforcement is expected to be light
at first. But scofflaws eventually could face fines of up to
$1,000 a day.
The Trump administration on Friday took another step toward
stripping federal protections from millions of acres of
wetlands, which help filter drinking water for many communities
and provide critical habitat for birds, fish and other
wildlife. The proposed rule from the Environmental Protection
Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would significantly
narrow the definition of “waters of the United States,” or
WOTUS, that are protected from harmful pollution under the
Clean Water Act of 1972. The new version is more sweeping
than an initial proposal released in November, which would have
removed federal protections from fewer wetlands nationwide.
The Navajo Nation Council has taken a major step toward
protecting one of its most precious water resources. A
unanimously passed measure formally acknowledges the Confluence
— where the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers meet — as a
sacred site under tribal law. Doing so formally documents what
Navajos already know — the spiritual and natural significance
of where these two life-giving rivers converge in northern
Arizona’s high desert. … Cataloging information from the
Confluence may also be used to potentially deter future
commercial development by industries like hydropower — while
the Trump administration is eyeing energy projects on tribal
lands.
The directors of a Kings County water district didn’t like it,
but they agreed to support a land assessment fee to pay for
regulations to minimize the impacts of excessive groundwater
pumping even though the district, itself, doesn’t actually
contribute to the problem. Directors of the Lakeside Irrigation
Water District agreed on Sept. 2 to support a land assessment
fee being proposed by a separate entity, the Mid-Kings
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA). … Mid-Kings GSA is
proposing to establish an annual fee of $26.84 per acre. …
But most of the 330 acres owned by Lakeside Irrigation is
actually used for groundwater recharge from the Kaweah River,
directors noted at their meeting. Meaning, the district,
itself, not only doesn’t contribute to the groundwater deficit,
it provides a net benefit to the subbasin.
