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 prospect of a costly and prolonged interstate lawsuit over
rights to the Colorado River looms now that the states using
the water are blowing past a Valentine’s Day deadline with no
water-sharing deal in hand. The dispute has largely hinged on
whether states in the headwaters region would agree to
mandatory cuts to their overall supply in especially dry years
— a commitment they have so far rejected in part because they
do not use their full allocation as the more developed
Southwest does. … Nevada’s lead negotiator issued a
statement on Feb. 13, a day before the target that most
everyone involved knew they would miss, and decried the
entrenched positions of states unwilling to bend.
The seven Western states that use the Colorado River are on the
hook to come up with a new agreement for sharing water by
Saturday, and it does not appear that they will have a deal by
the deadline. Negotiators from those states have been
deadlocked for the better part of two years. The Colorado River
supplies water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas through the
Central Arizona Project. It also feeds nearly 40 million people
and a massive agricultural industry. The river is in the grips
of a megadrought stretching back more than two decades, and
policymakers have struggled to agree on ways to rein in demand.
After months of talks, they can’t agree on who should feel the
pain of necessary cutbacks.
The California Supreme Court denied a petition by the Kings
County Farm Bureau to review whether the Fifth District Court
of Appeal properly reversed a preliminary injunction against
the state last year. Despite the set back, the Farm Bureau
vowed to continue with its underlying lawsuit. … The
Farm Bureau sued the State Water Resources Control Board in May
2024 after the Water Board placed the Tulare Lake subbasin,
which covers most of Kings County, on probation for
lacking an adequate groundwater plan as required per the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). … A
Kings County Superior Judge issued preliminary injunction
holding off those sanctions in Sept. 2024. … The Water Board
appealed and, in October 2025, the 5th District reversed the
injunction.
It’s going to get wet over the next week across the Bay Area
and the Sierra Nevada. That’s good news for local water
supplies and the state’s subpar snowpack, but the coming cold
system could complicate travel to the slopes for winter sports
enthusiasts. National Weather Service forecasters said they
expect multiple bands of precipitation to move over Northern
California starting Saturday and lasting through late next
week. … Forecasters expect the system to impact the
Sierra Nevada starting late Sunday, with heavy snow starting
Monday. More than 4 feet of snow could fall in the
Sierra Nevada next week — a huge boost for the state’s
snowpack, which is currently at about 54% of normal
for this time of year.
President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the
scientific finding that climate change endangers human health
and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal
authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating
the planet. The action is a key step in removing limits on
carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that
scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts,
wildfires and other extreme weather. … Gov.
Gavin Newsom of California promised a court challenge. “If this
reckless decision survives legal challenges, it will lead to
more deadly wildfires, more extreme heat deaths, more
climate-driven floods and droughts, and greater threats to
communities nationwide,” he said.
The Wyoming House of Representatives is poised to hear a bill
that would give half a million dollars to a state-funded study
on how data centers and hydrogen projects might sap or impact
the state’s water supply. That’s after the House
Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee
advanced House Bill 90 by an 8-1 vote Thursday morning in
Cheyenne, sending it to the House floor for full
debate. If it becomes law, it would give $500,000 to the
Wyoming State Engineer to conduct a study on large-scale
industrial water use by data centers, carbon capture, or other
large-scale industrial projects. It would include projects that
remove water from the water cycle, and electrolysis, plasma
dissociation, thermochemical splitting, chemical dissociation
of water into its elemental components, and using water as
feedstock for hydrogen fuel production or other chemical
compounds.
A House panel advanced bipartisan legislation Wednesday to
continue funding an EPA grant program that helps reduce
pollution from farms, construction sites and roads. The House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted to
send H.R. 7376, the “Local Water Protection Act,” to the
House for consideration, overruling objections from one member,
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.). Sponsored by Reps. Hillary Scholten
(D-Mich.) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.), the bill would reauthorize
EPA’s nonpoint source pollution grant program at $200 million
annually through fiscal 2031. Nonpoint pollution includes farm
runoff, road salt and construction debris, and can carry
fertilizer, chemicals and sediment into rivers, streams and
lakes.
Negotiations over how to manage the Delta’s water and fish
species hit a boiling point in late January, when hundreds of
members of the public, environmental groups, and Tribes pleaded
for days on end with California water officials. They demanded
that the State Water Resources Control Board go against
the wishes of powerful farming districts and mandate that more
water flows through the ailing estuary, lest its once prolific
chinook salmon, sturgeon, and smelt cross thresholds of
extinction. … The grueling faceoff came during a
three-day public hearing hosted by the State Water Board. The
sessions focused on the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan,
the keystone ruleset overseeing management of Delta water and
its various beneficial uses.
Senator Adam Schiff announced $54 million in federal funding
for the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project in Monterey
and Santa Cruz counties to increase flood protection by
rebuilding and strengthening failing levees. The new federal
investment will enhance flood protection by reconstructing
levees along the Pajaro River, which breached in 2023, flooding
Pajaro and surrounding areas and forcing thousands to evacuate
their homes. The federal funding aims to make critical
improvements to mitigate flood risk and protect residents, the
local economy, and infrastructure in the region.
Potential options for storing water if and when the dams
serving the Potter Valley Project are
eventually removed will be discussed Thursday by the Mendocino
County Inland Water and Power Commission, the board which First
District Mendocino County Supervisor Madeline Cline still sits
on despite reservations expressed last week by a fellow
supervisor. … Instead of the Two-Basin Solution that
many describe the proposed new diversions supported by the IWPC
as providing, [Former First District Supervisor Glenn] McGourty
said “at the moment we have what I call a one-and-a-half-basin
solution until we discover how we can store water so that
agriculture and the way of life in Potter Valley can
continue.”
In the Las Vegas Valley, both shade and water are critical
resources — and a new lawsuit is bringing to light how one is
sometimes sacrificed for the other in our desert community. A
lawsuit against the Southern Nevada Water Authority centers on
grass removal practices that critics say lead to widespread
tree damage. … As Las Vegas warms, shade from trees
becomes increasingly important for mitigating the health
impacts of extreme heat. On the other hand, a dwindling
Colorado River has people calling for conservation
measures across the basin. … With Colorado River water
irrigation for non-functional grass becoming illegal in 2027,
SNWA is encouraging property owners to take advantage of
current incentives, including $100 rebates for new trees
planted during grass conversions.
I stand at the mouth of the Tijuana River—a Stygian cesspool
that flows 120 miles north from Baja California, through the
working-class city of Tijuana with its hundreds of factories
manufacturing gadgets for American consumers—before crossing
the US-Mexico border. … While some find it convenient to
blame Mexico for not maintaining its system of pipes, pumps,
and wastewater treatment facilities, the reality is more
nuanced. Tijuana’s exponential growth resulted directly from US
economic and immigration policies, and its waste management
falls under the binational International Boundary and Water
Commission (IBWC), established by an 1889 US-Mexico treaty.
As water systems across the Southwest face mounting pressures
ranging from aging infrastructure to water supply challenges,
the need for a prepared, adaptable water workforce has never
been more urgent. Arizona State University’s Water
Management Certificate was designed to meet this moment,
offering a practical, accessible pathway into one of the
region’s most critical fields. Now in its third cohort, the
15-week, noncredit certificate has already enrolled more than
600 learners, with over 1,000 applicants from across the United
States. The program brings together working professionals,
graduate students, career changers and community members, many
of whom are encountering water management as a career option
for the first time.
A bipartisan group of Central Valley House members urged the
Newsom administration Monday to reverse an environmental rule
governing operations in the state’s main water hub, arguing it
is unnecessarily limiting exports south to farms and
communities. Democratic Reps. Jim Costa and Adam Gray and
Republican Reps. David Valadao and Vince Fong wrote to Gov.
Gavin Newsom and top water officials in his administration
asking them “to reverse an ill-timed decision” to limit water
pumping in the sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
this month. Both Newsom and President Donald Trump have
sought to export and store more water this year — including by
relaxing environmental rules in the Delta and backing new
reservoir projects.
Multiple storms will spin southward along the Pacific Coast of
the United States next week. Each storm will bring abundant
rain and mountain snow and cause significant impacts on travel
and the potential for flooding and mudslides. … On
Sunday or [Monday], drenching rain is likely to spin into
coastal areas of Northern and Central California. From there,
low-elevation rain and mountain snow will expand southward and
eastward across California then into the interior West.
… “It is possible the series of storms next week
in California delivers close to an entire month’s worth of rain
and snow,” AccuWeather Chief On-Air Meteorologist
Bernie Rayno said. … Much of the interior West is in
desperate need of storms with ample moisture.
Other winter storm and snowpack news around the West:
The Colorado River Basin is in crisis. Climate change is
reducing its flow and its biggest reservoirs are shrinking. The
seven U.S. states that use the river are negotiating cutbacks
to their water use. The Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah,
Wyoming, and New Mexico are deadlocked with the Lower Basin
states of California, Arizona, and Nevada. But the federal
government has a big stake in the negotiations, too. …
Dwindling water levels hurt its ability to generate and sell
hydropower. Lower flows degrade the federally-managed national
parks the river flows through. Diminishing supplies threaten
the viability of the river’s core legal document, the Colorado
River Compact. With all of those layered interests, it’s led
some to ask: Why aren’t federal officials applying more
pressure to get a deal finalized?
Over the past decade, parts of California have plummeted by
multiple feet, according to satellite measurements. The San
Joaquin Valley saw the biggest drops, with parts of
the Tulare Basin sinking more than seven feet between
2015 and 2025. Although the most dramatic declines occurred
during drought years, subsidence did not stop when wetter
conditions returned: even from 2024 to 2025, sections of the
basin sank by as much as five inches. … Multiple
factors drive vertical land motion, but California’s subsidence
has largely been due to agricultural pumping for
groundwater, said Paul Gosselin, deputy
director for sustainable water management for the California
Department of Water Resources.
AI is driving a boom in data centers, and with it growing
demands on California’s water resources. Developers are
building more data centers alongside the hundreds already
operating in California. This report evaluates how to better
manage their water impacts on local communities and the
environment. Servers in data centers generate heat and
typically use water for cooling. Concern over data center water
use is growing. Yet, there is very little understanding of how
much water they actually use, where their water use may cause
negative impacts, and what measures the state, local leaders,
and the industry can take to manage it. To respond to this
growing challenge, our team reviewed current knowledge on data
center water use, mapped the policy and regulatory framework
for direct data center water use in California, and developed
recommendations.
This week, California Trout, Trout Unlimited and CalWild
announced that they would be working in partnership with the
the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (North
Coast Water Board) to designate Cedar Creek and Elder Creek —
two tributaries of the South Fork Eel River watershed —
Outstanding National Resource Waters. The ONRW designation, a
federal status established by the Clean Water Act, is “one of
the strongest legal mechanisms available to protect water
quality,” according to a joint news release issued Monday
morning. … The ONRW designation would extend throughout the
two creeks’ watershed to segments of Cedar Creek within the
Little Red Mountain Ecological Preserve (including Little Cedar
Creek, North Fork Cedar Creek and associated wetlands) and
Elder Creek’s tributaries, all important areas for salmonid
recovery efforts.
A pipeline used to send wastewater from Tijuana to the a
treatment plant in San Diego ruptured Feb. 10, the U.S.
International Boundary and Water Commission (USIBWC) reports.
The rupture sent sewage into and through Stewart’s Drain, but
no wastewater reached the Tijuana River channel due to efforts
from the USIBWC and its contractors Veolia and INBODE. The
transboundary flow was stopped using portable pumps and vacuum
trucks, and ultimately lasted from approximately 5 a.m. until
6:30 a.m. The ruptured pipe was repaired by 9 a.m. The incident
occurred as the IBWC finalized repairs of Junction Box 1
(JB-1), which is part of a network of infrastructure that
carries wastewater from Tijuana to the South Bay International
Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) in San Diego.
