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 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 city of Antioch is doing what many Bay Area communities
have only talked about: turning salt water into drinking water.
The city’s new $120 million desalination
plant, which began operating in September, was built
to ensure that the local water supply, from the vast
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, would
remain drinkable despite its rising salinity. The city now can
get up to 30% of its total water from desalination. …
Across California, communities are looking to firm up their
water supplies in the face of myriad climate pressures,
including increasing droughts and decreasing
snowpack. Several water agencies are turning to desal.
For Las Vegas to keep its taps flowing, Rep. Susie Lee says
this one drought measure must survive federal spending purges:
water recycling. Lee, D-Nev., and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz.,
introduced the Large-Scale Water Recycling Reauthorization Act
in Congress on Thursday to reauthorize a federal grant program
that will sunset in 2026. While it doesn’t currently add any
more money to the program, Lee said it would allow the Bureau
of Reclamation to dole out $125 million in unused funds,
extending the program to 2031.
California reservoir water levels are in “incredible shape,”
with all of the state’s major reservoirs at or above 100
percent of historical average for this time of year, according
to data from the state’s Department of Water Resources (DWR).
… California’s water storage levels have surged to some of
the highest seen in recent years, providing critical relief
after years of persistent drought. All of the state’s major
reservoirs, which serve as key water sources for nearly
40 million residents and vast agricultural operations,
now hold 100 percent of the average capacity for this time of
year or above, helping to safeguard water supplies for the
hotter, drier months ahead.
… On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to
strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands
and streams, narrowing the reach of the Clean Water
Act. On Wednesday, federal wildlife agencies announced
changes to the Endangered Species Act that
could make it harder to rescue endangered species from the
brink of extinction. And on Thursday, the Interior Department
moved to allow new oil and gas drilling across nearly 1.3
billion acres of U.S. coastal waters, including a remote region
in the high Arctic where drilling has never before taken place.
If the Trump administration’s proposals are finalized and
upheld in court, they could reshape U.S. environmental policy
for years to come, environmental lawyers and activists said.
Other federal water and environmental policy news:
Leaping over small man-made jumps and swimming determinedly
upstream in Alameda Creek, a small group of bright red chinook
salmon are back from the Pacific Ocean and ready to
spawn. … Once native to the stream, chinook salmon
have been unable to reach the upper portion of Alameda Creek
for decades due to concrete barriers and other water supply
infrastructure blocking their path. … But over the past
three decades, the Alameda County water and flood control
districts and other agencies — urged on by environmental groups
— have completed restoration projects meant to encourage fish
migration.
A new report released today by the Pacific Institute and the
Center for Water Security and Cooperation (CWSC) provides the
most comprehensive framework to date for assessing and
improving whether laws enable climate-resilient U.S. water and
sanitation systems. The report, “Actionable Criteria for
Achieving Equitable, Climate-Resilient Water and Sanitation
Laws and Policies,” is the fourth publication in
the Water, Sanitation, and Climate Change in the United
States series. It is intended as a resource for frontline
communities and their supporters – including local and state
legislators – to identify new or improved legal strategies for
building more equitable, climate-resilient water and
sanitation.
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, found
that health impacts from pollution associated with California’s
computer processing data centers tripled from 2019 to 2023 —
and could rise by another 72% by 2028 unless mitigation
policies are enacted. … From 2019 to 2023, the total
evaporated water — including both direct evaporation for
cooling and indirect evaporation for electricity generation —
used by California data centers increased by more than
96%, reaching 49.9 billion liters, mostly from
indirect evaporation. By 2028, that number could rise to
116 billion liters annually — a concern in a state that
regularly faces drought and water shortages.
A city consultant recently discovered PFAS chemicals in the
soil and groundwater of the Livermore Municipal Airport,
spurring the regional water board to call for additional
evaluation of the site. The PFAS Investigation Report published
Oct. 13 by Geosyntec Consultants, Inc. was meant to determine
whether PFAS — an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and
polyfluoroalkyl substances — have been released at the airport
and whether a discharge has contributed to PFAS plumes in the
Livermore Valley Main Basin or contamination in municipal
drinking water supply wells operated by the Zone 7 Water
Agency.
The California State Coastal Conservancy awarded more than $7.3
million in grants Thursday to help restore, protect and improve
access to coastal areas in the greater Bay Area and on the
North Coast. Most of the projects support forest and
vegetation management and wildfire abatement, funded by
Proposition 4. … Friends of the Eel River will receive
$181,400 to create the Eel River Native Plant Project, a
regional native plant network that will support habitat
restoration in the upper Eel River basin in Mendocino, Lake and
Humboldt counties in response to the anticipated removal of the
Scott and Cape Horn dams — known collectively as the Potter
Valley Project — in 2028.
A feared hike in water costs for local farmers won’t be as bad
as first expected following a reversal from the San Diego
County Water Authority. Water officials have bailed on earlier
plans to sharply reduce a special water-rate discount enjoyed
by many San Diego-area farmers — a discount the agricultural
sector sees as a key policy keeping their struggling industry
afloat. In May, the authority had warned it might have to roll
back the special discount because of falling demand for its
water and other financial challenges. But on Thursday, the
authority’s board unanimously backed a plan to spend millions
in property tax revenue each year to keep farmers’ water costs
down.
Boat launches at two East Bay Municipal Utility District
reservoirs will reopen in 2026 on a limited basis, following a
yearlong closure aimed to stave off the invasive golden
mussel. The reopening plan was approved last week by the
EBMUD Board of Directors for the San Pablo Reservoir in the
East Bay and the Camanche Reservoir South Shore in the Sierra
foothills. … The destructive species hasn’t been
detected at any of EBMUD’s reservoirs, but the golden mussel
has spread quickly throughout the state since it was first
identified in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in October 2024.
From high in the mountains of Sequoia National Park to the
fertile farmland of the valley floor, the Kaweah River is one
of the central California’s major rivers. We explore its
history and what makes it unusual, today on KVPR’s Central
Valley Roots. … [A]s the river enters the floor of the
San Joaquin Valley, it does something unusual, at least for our
region. While most of our other rivers continue to collect
smaller tributaries as they head downstream, the Kaweah does
the opposite. It spreads out in multiple smaller creeks, in a
broad alluvial fan, creating the fertile Kaweah Delta.
If you feel like you’ve tried just about every beer on the
market, a California-based company is bringing brews made from
an unexpected ingredient: recycled water. Epic Cleantec has
announced that it will begin distributing its Shower Hour IPA
and Laundry Club Kölsch across several states, including
Oregon. The San Francisco-based business describes itself as a
“pioneer in onsite water reuse solutions for the real estate
industry.” It partnered with the San Carlos-based Devil’s
Canyon Brewing Company to create the new products that feature
shower and laundry water from the buildings that use Epic’s
on-site purification systems.
In January, when crews fighting the fast-spreading Palisades
fire were hampered by low water pressure and dry hydrants, Gov.
Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation. After a 10-month review,
California officials concluded in a report that the water
supply in Southern California was “robust” at the time of the
fire and that the water system isn’t designed to handle
such large, intense wildfires. The state’s findings,
released Thursday, also address an issue that has been a point
of frustration and anger among residents in Pacific Palisades:
the fact that Santa Ynez Reservoir, which can hold 117 million
gallons of drinking water, was empty for repairs at the time of
the fire.
About 30 ranchers and residents sat quietly in the Cuyama
Valley Family Resource Center recently, hanging on every word
from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Highberger
as he succinctly laid out the history, the status and the
substantial stakes of an ongoing groundwater
adjudication started by mega carrot farming companies
Grimmway Farms and Bolthouse Farms in
2022. … Highberger has already determined the safe
yield for the Cuyama basin, which is the amount that can be
pumped without causing problems such as land sinking or
groundwater levels continuing to drop. … Current pumping is
between 42,000 and 44,000 acre feet per year, or more than
double what can be extracted without putting the basin into
overdraft. Highberger must now determine which pumpers will be
allotted how much of that 20,370-acre-foot pie.
A yearslong effort to purchase two of the most powerful water
rights on the Colorado River has cleared another hurdle after
the state water board agreed to manage the rights alongside
Western Slope water officials. The Colorado Water Conservation
Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to accept the two water
rights tied to the Shoshone Power Plant into its environmental
flow program. The approval is a critical piece in the Colorado
River District’s $99 million deal with the owner of the aging
plant in Glenwood Canyon — Xcel Energy — but the deal has faced
pushback from Front Range water providers that fear the change
could impact their supplies.
When it rains, it pours, and that’s a good thing when it comes
to water supply levels in California, especially in Southern
California. Statewide, reservoir storage is now about 114% of
the historical average, marking a significant improvement in
water availability. … The improved storage arrives just
as drought conditions across California continue to diminish. A
newly released drought map shows more than 70% of the state is
now free from any drought designation. That’s a dramatic shift
from August, when nearly three-quarters of the state was
experiencing drought – including a small area categorized in
the most severe level.
After an atmospheric river dumped heavy rain and strong winds
on parts of Southern California earlier this month, more
weather woes were on the way to the region on Nov. 21 with
forecasters warning of additional rain and flash flooding. Two
back-to-back low pressure systems are set to impact Southern
California and the Desert Southwest on Nov. 21 and 22, the
National Weather Service said. … The second system will
come right on the heels of the first, keeping most of the heavy
rain over Mexico but creeping up into Arizona and New Mexico by
the end of the weekend, the weather service said.
Utahns hoping for clarity on the government’s next move to keep
the Colorado River from drying up and still supply plenty of
water to the state will have to wait. Utah and six other states
along the parched river haven’t reached a deal on how they’ll
share the water supply a year from now, but they agree enough
to keep talking. That progress means they don’t have to turn
the job over to the federal government yet, Utah’s negotiator
said Wednesday. … The federal government set a Nov. 11
deadline for a broad agreement, but gave the states approval to
keep talking as they work toward a February cutoff to reach a
firm deal, [Utah Colorado River Commissioner Gene] Shawcroft
told reporters in a brief conference call.
Power plants. Sewage treatment facilities. Fossil fuel ports.
Radioactively contaminated sites. These are just a few of the
249 hazardous sites across the Bay Area that could flood as
seas rise in the coming decades in the worst-case scenario,
according to a new report published Thursday in the journal
Nature Communications. The researchers project that 5,500
hazardous sites across the nation could be at risk of coastal
flooding by the end of the century. Around two-thirds of these
facilities are at risk of coastal flooding within the next 25
years, during 100-year flood events.
