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.
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.
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.”
After the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its Final
Environmental Impact Statement for Post-2026 Colorado River
Operations, Governor Katie Hobbs issued the following
statement: “Today, the federal government released a broad
range of alternatives for how the Colorado River will be
managed over the next ten years. Within that range is the
opportunity for the federal government to adopt the
commonsense, compromise proposal put forward by Lower Basin
States for 2027 and 2028. Our proposal is one of the largest
conservation programs in Colorado River history and builds on
Arizona’s decades-long commitment to responsible water
stewardship. While this FEIS still contains unacceptable
options that include the federal government forcing Arizona to
take the majority of draconian water cutbacks, implementing the
Lower Basin agreement would protect Arizona from massive water
cuts.”
Other Colorado River statements and news releases:
The scope of cyberattacks on U.S. water systems has grown to
include at least seven states and may be far wider, officials
and experts warned, as the authorities raced to
safeguard the nation’s water supply against an assault that
increasingly appeared to be the work of Iran. While
there were no indications that any water supply had been
altered or made unsafe to drink, state and local officials
throughout the country were on high alert for potential
problems in vulnerable computers that are commonly used to
monitor and adjust water quality, including chemical-treatment
levels and water pressure. Minnesota first publicly reported
the attacks, and now Michigan says its systems have also been
targeted.
Mexican officials announced on Thursday that the contamination
of the Tijuana River could be fully resolved by 2027, pending
the completion of infrastructure projects outlined in
binational agreements with the United States. During the
president’s morning press conference, Environment Secretary
Alicia Bárcena provided an update on the country’s progress
under Minute 333 of the International Boundary and Water
Commission (IBWC), an agreement signed last year to tackle
cross-border pollution affecting both San Diego and
Tijuana. According to Bárcena, Mexico has already
fulfilled its commitments under the agreement, with 17
of the approximately 38 planned projects either finalized or
significantly advanced, as part of the federal
government’s strategy to improve water quality and reduce
pollution.
… El Niño, the weather phenomena that produces warmer sea
surface waters and weakened trade winds, has typically also
brought wet winters to Southern California. … But the
connection between ocean conditions and rainfall has weakened
this century. That forces scientists to adjust forecasts, and
public officials to plan for a wider range of scenarios. Adding
to that uncertainty are San Diego’s aging stormwater systems
and century-old dams. That’s why the city of San Diego
convened an El Niño working group with members of every
city department to prepare for weather related
emergencies.
Trout need cool water to survive, but record heat this summer
has driven water temperatures to lethal levels for fish.
Wildlife officials are banning fishing during certain hours on
rivers and streams across the U.S. West, following an
exceptionally dry winter and amid widespread drought. Lower
water levels mean rivers can heat more rapidly. … A
study last year found “river heat waves” are increasingly
happening in snow-dominated areas such as the northern U.S. and
the Rockies, said Li Li, a professor in civil and environmental
engineering at Pennsylvania State University and co-author of
the study. Climate change, she said, is changing the
size and timing of the mountain snowpack, and that’s
contributing to river heat waves. The researchers also
found more days when rivers were warm enough to stress
cold-water species like bull trout.
Congressman James Gallagher introduced new federal legislation
Friday that aims to improve water reliability across Northern
California while investing in river restoration and long-term
ecosystem health. The Doug LaMalfa Sacramento River Basin Water
Security and Reliability Act would support water storage
projects, strengthen water infrastructure and provide funding
for habitat restoration throughout the Sacramento River Basin.
According to Gallagher’s office, the Sacramento River Basin
supplies water to millions of Californians and supports one of
the nation’s most productive agricultural regions. The
legislation is designed to improve water reliability while
balancing environmental stewardship and fish habitat
restoration.
A new study shows heavy groundwater pumping during California’s
2020 to 2022 drought caused the ground in the Sacramento Valley
to sink faster than expected, reducing the aquifer’s ability to
hold water. Published last week in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, the study found the
damage to the aquifer is irreversible. One of the
study’s authors, Kristel Chanard, estimated the lost
groundwater storage capacity is roughly equivalent to San
Francisco’s annual water consumption. … The
resulting lost groundwater storage capacity is significant,
Chanard said, because groundwater provides a buffer during dry
periods. Groundwater provides nearly 30% of the region’s water
supply, and more during dry years, according to the NCWA.
Following a resolution by the California State Water Resources
Board, the Quartz Valley Indian Reservation is poised to
acquire nearly 40,000 acres of ancestral land in the Klamath
River Basin. State officials said the transaction would be the
second-largest tribal land-back deal in California history and
the largest completed in a single transaction in the United
States. According to a State Water Resources Control Board news
release, the action provides the Quartz Valley Indian
Reservation with the means to acquire nearly 40,000 acres of
ancestral territory in the Klamath River Basin and restore
salmon habitat and water quality across the Scott River
watershed. …The board said it will provide a zero‑interest
$25 million loan through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund
to support the purchase and help Quartz Valley establish a
salmon sanctuary, protect water quality and restore cultural
practices.
… The Eel River Pikeminnow Fishing Derby is back for its
third year, offering $5,000 in total cash and prizes to anyone
willing to help thin out one of the watershed’s most
destructive invaders. … The target is the Sacramento
pikeminnow, a fish that doesn’t belong in the Eel River. The
species was introduced through Pillsbury Reservoir in the late
1970s and has since spread into every fork of the river.
Prolific and wide-ranging, pikeminnow prey on native salmonids
and lamprey while competing with them for resources, adding
another obstacle to recovery in a watershed already battered by
historic overfishing, damaging logging practices, and habitat
loss.
Arizona, California and Nevada would take less water
from the Colorado River under a proposal announced
Friday by the federal government to stave off crisis in
the beleaguered waterway. The proposal from the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation spares Colorado, Utah, New Mexico
and Wyoming from facing mandatory cuts for now. But
it’s a temporary fix as the states that rely on the river still
fight over a long-term management plan for the
dwindling resource that powers huge swaths of the Western
U.S. Under the plan, the Lower Basin states could face
collective cuts up to 3 million acre-feet (130 billion cubic
feet) through 2036, “subject to hydrology,”
according to a press release by the Department of the Interior.
That’s about enough water to serve more than 25 million people
a year.
… According to a new report, rigid fee structures and
complex regulations threaten to harm California’s smallest
growers, driving land consolidation in favor of deep-pocketed
corporate orchards. The report by the University of California
Small Farms Network and the nonprofit group Community Alliance
with Family Farmers warns that without immediate action
by state and local agencies, many family farms could be forced
out of business. … The researchers suggested
each local groundwater agency identify the smaller farmers,
consider exempting those that use minimal water and set
fees in a tiered system that allows growers who pump less to
pay less.
Since President Donald Trump took office for a second term, his
administration has rolled back numerous environmental
protections. The latest target is the Endangered Species Act,
one of the nation’s bedrock conservation laws. Earlier this
month, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued a new
interpretation of what would constitute harming an endangered
species that sharply loosens the act’s protections related to
the degradation of protected wildlife’s habitat.
… Endangered and threatened fish species have carried
particular weight in dictating how state and federal agencies
regulate the flow of water into and out of the
Delta. Agencies today balance irrigation and
development needs with the water quality and
temperature needed by endangered and threatened fish,
ranging from winter run Chinook salmon and Central
Valley steelhead trout to diminutive delta and longfin
smelt.
A class-action lawsuit filed last week seeks to challenge a
controversial water-use fee that the Las Vegas Valley Water
District has said is an attempt to rein in the valley’s
top water-wasters. Attorneys argue that the district’s
excessive use fees generated at least $96 million in agency
revenue that should be returned to ratepayers. Tens of
thousands of Las Vegas residents could join the lawsuit and
potentially recover the penalty they paid for using too much
water per the policy, according to a legal complaint.
… Officials have said the goal of the program is
to help identify leaks and reduce community water usage as
drought in the Colorado River Basin and the outlook of Lake
Mead worsen every year.
Tom Gibson, new director of California’s Department of Water
Resources, will serve as the keynote speaker for our 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit on Oct. 29. Guided by this year’s
theme, Stewarding a New Era in Western
Water,Gibson and other leading
policymakers and experts will address emerging topics related
to the challenges and opportunities facing water resource
management in California and the West. A full agenda of the
Water Summit featuring a slate of engaging panels and speakers
will be available soon, but you can register
now for the daylong conference on Thursday, Oct.
29 at the Sawyer Hotel in downtown Sacramento.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) is deploying
a range of monitoring, treatment and infrastructure measures to
protect the State Water Project (SWP) from the rapidly growing
threat posed by invasive golden mussels. Golden mussels can
colonize pipes, pumps and other water infrastructure, creating
biofouling that can restrict flows, damage equipment and
increase maintenance requirements. DWR’s response includes
expanded environmental DNA (eDNA) testing and inspections
throughout the SWP to detect infestations early. At
affected facilities, DWR is using low-dose copper treatments as
its primary mitigation strategy while increasing manual
cleaning, pipeline flushing, power washing and
hand-scraping.
Congressman James Gallagher (CA-01) helped secure $155 million
for water and wastewater infrastructure projects throughout the
Sacramento River Basin through the Water Resources Development
Act (WRDA), providing significant new federal support for
projects that improve water quality, modernize critical
infrastructure, and strengthen long-term water reliability
across Northern California. The investment was included in the
Water Resources Development Act as approved by the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The funding
expands the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ authority to partner
on environmental infrastructure projects throughout the
Sacramento River and Bay-Delta region, helping communities
address aging infrastructure while improving regional water
resilience.
The Truckee River Watershed Council (TRWC) has broken ground on
the Coldstream Canyon Lower Floodplain Restoration project
along the lower reach of Cold Creek. The project will
reestablish important habitat for vegetation and wildlife,
restore critical ecosystem functions, prevent erosion, increase
climate resiliency, and improve water quality flowing
downstream to the Truckee River. The project will create
3.2 acres of floodplain area and 1.9 acres of additional
riparian habitat. The effort will remove erosive, nonnative
filler soils and upland species such as lodgepole pine to
create room for riparian (waterway-adjacent) species that
stabilize banks, prevent erosion, and mitigate the impacts of
flooding.
This year’s heat death toll for Southern Nevada rose to 46 on
Thursday, a day after the Clark County coroner’s office
released a spreadsheet that listed 29 heat-related
deaths. The updated number comes as Las Vegas braces for
110-degree highs through next week and the county extended its
cooling station activation until Wednesday. The coroner’s
office broadened its criteria in 2021 for determining when heat
should be considered during a death investigation, and
temperatures above 95 degrees are generally when investigators
will consider heat illness. It’s widely believed that even
the most inclusive standard leaves out deaths from
official counts.
Plato Malozemoff Distinguished Professor at UC Berkeley and
co-founder of major research platforms including ReNUWIt and
the National Alliance for Water Innovation, David Sedlak has
spent three decades bridging environmental chemistry, treatment
engineering and water policy. In this conversation, he
discusses public trust, PFAS regulation, the quiet bottleneck
of concentrate management, and why the future of water security
may depend less on any single technology than on dismantling
the institutional silos that keep drinking water, wastewater
and stormwater artificially apart.
