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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As the drought-stricken Colorado River lurches toward a
sprawling water and power crisis, lawmakers are beginning to
discuss an escape hatch: waiving or streamlining environmental
rules. “Several weeks ago, I met with the 14 senators from the
Colorado River Basin, and on a bipartisan basis, several of
them said, ‘Look, if we have a real crisis on the Colorado and
we need to get things done, and if there are any environmental
statutes that are slowing things down, tell us what they are
and maybe we can legislate to clear out some of the unhelpful
bureaucratic paperwork,’” acting Bureau of Reclamation
Commissioner Scott Cameron said during a House Natural
Resources Committee hearing Wednesday.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday declared a
statewide emergency due to widespread drought and severe
wildfire conditions, which mobilizes various state agencies to
provide affected communities with resources. The
governor’s executive order cites the state’s historically low
snowpack, high spring temperatures, severe winds and
ongoing wildfires. It directs the state’s Drought Task Force to
ensure communities receive “available information and resources
to enable them to prepare for and respond to drought conditions
and conserve and protect New Mexico’s water
supplies.” Coinciding with the executive order, the
governor’s office publicized a new website — the Drought
Information Portal.
More than a dozen “friend of the court,” briefs have been filed
with the state Supreme Court debating whether a local judge
erred when he ordered that enough water be kept in the mostly
dry Kern River bed through Bakersfield for fish. The Attorney
General’s office, a slew of environmental and farm groups,
along with far flung water districts, economic development
agencies, fisheries groups and even a northern California tribe
and crab boat association all weighed in on the fight for a
flowing Kern River. The attention from such a wide array of
groups reflects just how high-stakesthe outcome of this case
will be as it involves constitutional questions that
could affect water rights and conservation efforts on rivers
throughout the state.
The Trump administration says it will increase the water it’s
sending to Central Valley farmlands this year from
Shasta Lake, the state’s largest reservoir.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said agricultural water agencies
south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta will receive
25% of their total contracted amount, up from an initial 20%.
Cities and towns will also get more from the federal canals
that are part of the Central Valley Project. The agency cited
“modest improvements” in reservoir levels after some rainstorms
in April. Environmental and fishing groups reacted to
Tuesday’s announcement with concern, saying that taking too
much water out of Shasta Lake threatens to harm Chinook salmon
by depriving them of vital cold water in the Sacramento
River in the late summer and fall.
The coming “Super” El Niño is poised to affect the lives of
hundreds of millions of people worldwide as it strengthens
through the year into the winter season. It may also alter
ecosystems for decades to come, judging from the repercussions
of past intense El Niños. … However, El Niño does not
instigate individual weather systems so much as dial up or down
the odds for particular conditions to prevail at a certain time
of the year. … In the US, for example, El Niño’s influence
tends to peak during the winter months, with weaker
correlations with weather patterns at other times of the year.
And during the winter, El Niño’s role is to put its thumb on
the scale and raise the odds of repeated atmospheric
river events affecting California and
wetter-than-average conditions across the southern tier of the
US.
A new coalition of advocates released their plan to address
California’s water problems. The Water Renaissance Plan
for California addresses current water strategies that the
coalition claims are outdated, unreliable, and costly. … The
long-proposed Delta Conveyance Project, DCP, also known as the
Delta Tunnel, has been supported by various California
Governors. It would distribute water from the Sacramento River
to the south, but its cost has continued to rise and now is
estimated to be over $20-billion dollars. The new Water
Renaissance coalition opposes this plan, and offers an
alternative … including reducing water use, recapturing
water, and restoring groundwater to reach the goal.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
announced it will rollback maximum contaminant levels for four
per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water and
extend the compliance period for two other PFAS chemicals. The
proposed rule would rescind regulations set under the Biden
administration for PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and PFBS, which is a
mixture of these three PFAS chemicals. The new rule would
remove the requirement for municipalities to install filtration
to remove these specific chemicals. … The EPA says
it is drafting a new rule that would implement new standards on
“key industrial categories” that discharge PFAS in an effort to
keep the chemicals out of the water supply.
California Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla introduced the
“Golden Mussel Eradication and Control Act of 2026” on
Wednesday that would, if passed, create a task force to partner
with state and other entities to develop best practices for
dealing with the invasive species that has rapidly infested the
state’s water ways. This bill is a companion to one introduced
in June 2025 by Rep. Josh Harder (D-Turlock), H.R. 3717, in the
House of Representatives, which was referred to the Committee
on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the
Committee on Natural Resources. Both bills would authorize $15
million a year over the next four years to be given in grants
by the task force to its various partners for research and
development.
Just hours after a second water rights change application for
the proposed Stratos data center was published for public
notice, hundreds of formal protests started to pour in. The
application was filed with the Utah Division of Water Rights on
April 28, though the formal period for public response opened
up Wednesday morning. “I’m encouraged. I think it’s important
for the public to weigh in,” General Counsel for Friends of
Great Salt Lake, Rob Debuc, said. The organization had
previously called for protests against an earlier water rights
change application that called for 1,900 square acre-feet of
water. This second application only asks for 11 square
acre-feet, but Dubuc pointed out there’s likely more to come,
as he said the process for the massive project will likely be
unusual.
The Tijuana Slough at the Tijuana River Mouth ranked among
California’s most polluted beaches, while Playa Blanca near
Tijuana was listed as the state’s worst beach in Heal the Bay’s
annual Beach Report Card released Wednesday ahead of Memorial
Day weekend. The environmental nonprofit’s 2025-26 report
placed the Tijuana Slough ninth on its annual “Beach Bummer”
list of beaches with the poorest summer dry-weather water
quality grades because of elevated bacteria levels and chronic
pollution concerns. According to Heal the Bay, Playa Blanca and
the Tijuana Slough continue to be heavily impacted by
transboundary wastewater flows from Baja California, although
efforts are underway on both sides of the border to reduce
sewage discharges and improve infrastructure.
The Bureau of Reclamation will temporarily open the Delta Cross
Channel Gates over Memorial Day weekend to improve recreational
boating access in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. The gates
are scheduled to open Friday, May 22, at 10 a.m. and will
remain open through Tuesday, May 26, at 10 a.m. The temporary
opening will provide enhanced access for boaters traveling
between the Sacramento River and the central Delta during the
busy holiday weekend. After the holiday period, the gates will
return to normal operations and close on Tuesday morning.
According to the Bureau of Reclamation, gate operations are
coordinated with multiple resource agencies to balance water
quality, fishery protection, flood control, and recreational
opportunities throughout the Delta.
President Donald Trump signed a bill into law Tuesday that will
allow water managers to build a $2 billion pipeline under a
national conservation area. The Sloan Canyon Conservation
and Lateral Water Pipeline Act was championed in Congress
by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Rep. Dina Titus, both
Democrats. Ultimately, the pipeline will meet growing service
demands in Henderson and southwest Las Vegas and ensure that
water service can continue should an older pipeline need
repairs. … The costly, massive construction project is a
response to the aging existing South Valley Lateral pipeline,
which was constructed in 1996 and supplies about 40 percent of
the valley’s water. … In addition to allowing the water
authority to build the pipeline, the law adds 9,280 acres to
the 48,438-acre Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area.
If you didn’t know Jon Bishop before the pandemic chased
everyone out of CalEPA headquarters and into a virtual
existence six years ago, the State Water Board’s Chief Deputy
Director provided quite the introduction. … His round
features, accentuated by wire-rimmed, rectangular glasses,
reddened with passion when he leaned into the microphone and
forcefully delivered his latest message. You couldn’t miss him
if you wanted to — and you wouldn’t want to. After 41 years
with the Water Boards — dating back to a time when “total
maximum daily loads” (TMDL) referred to weight limits on box
trucks instead of pollution limits — he knows where all the
pens and pencils are buried.
Improvements in reservoir storage and spring runoff conditions
have contributed to a modest increase in water
allocation for westside farmers [in the San Joaquin
Valley], the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Tuesday. The
allocation has risen to 25% for the south-of-Delta contractors,
up from a 20% allocation issued in March. Also receiving a
boost in allocations are municipal and Industrial water service
and repayment contractors. Their allocation increased from 70%
to 75% of their historic use. … Westlands Water District
General Manager Allison Febbo said in a statement that while
farmers appreciate the additional supply of water, the system
still falls short of capturing and storing water.
The Trump administration is nearing intervention in the
yearslong standstill between the seven states that share the
Colorado River at a historic point of crisis. A 10-year
federal plan would require the states to return to the
negotiation table every two years — something that
Arizona officials revealed the first details about last week
during a public meeting. This shift to a new, short-term
agreement in the face of record low reservoir levels was a
central tenet of Nevada’s recent proposal for a stopgap
measure. … A plan must be in place by Oct. 1, the start of
the water year. Current sharing guidelines expire at the end of
2026.
After three consecutive years of being off restaurant menus,
one of the most prized local fish is finally swimming its way
back to market, and chefs are hooked. Wild California King
salmon, also known as Chinook, is the largest of the Pacific
salmon. … The quality of one year’s fishery depends on how
successful the young fish were in getting to the ocean years
before, according to UC Davis professor Dr. Nann A. Fangue. …
“It’s very cyclical, and when we have things like
drought conditions, where the conditions for
outmigrating juvenile fish aren’t so good, you expect in three
years to have kind of a poor fishery, but then when you have
conditions that promote lots of outmigration success, then in
three or four years you expect to have lots of adults
returning, so this is part of that cycle.”
Another ranch in Box Elder County’s Hansel Valley is looking to
transfer water to Kevin O’Leary’s massive Stratos data center
project. Murray Hollow L.C. submitted a change application to
the Utah Division of Water Rights on April 28, seeking
to convey water historically used for domestic and livestock
use to industrial use for a natural gas plant and associated
data center, according to the application. The
new application for roughly 11 acre-feet per year is far
smaller than a previous change request filed by Bar H Ranch
last month that would have transferred roughly 1,900 acre-feet
to the Stratos project developers. The Bar H application was
pulled earlier this month after it had amassed nearly 4,000
protests.
There has never been a website offering the public a glimpse
into the basic workings of the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage
District – a public agency – and that’s not going to
change any time soon. The board voted at its May 12 meeting on
a recurring resolution that declares creating a public website
to provide such items as meeting times, locations and agendas
is a “hardship.” … El Rico GSA and Tulare Lake Basin WSD
share the same address and meeting space at 1001 Chase Ave. in
Corcoran. And they meet on the same day, the second Tuesday of
the month, three hours apart. Unlike Tulare Lake Basin WSD,
however, El Rico GSA is required under the Sustainability
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to maintain a public website,
no exemptions allowed.
Lupine and California golden poppies are already blooming
everywhere. They’re more than beautiful, and tougher than they
look: Wildflowers can teach us a lot about surviving
drought. A new study shows wildflowers employ a
mixture of strategies, some intentionally risky and others
cautiously conservative, both above-ground and below, to thrive
in conditions that can vary widely from year to year. With
climate change making drought more frequent
and more severe, this work hones the ability of land managers
to predict which plants will thrive in which ecosystems in the
future.
The large metallic white box sits in a Southern California
parking lot, looking unremarkable until water starts flowing
from a hose attached to it. Peer inside, though, and it’s
nearly empty but for some wires, tubes and a container of
light-colored material. The water isn’t being conjured out of
thin air by magic but by MOFs — metallic organic frameworks.
MOFs are nanocrystalline structures engineered at an atomic
level to attract specific molecules. In this case that’s H2O
and the machine made by the startup Atoco is silently
harvesting molecules from the surrounding air and storing them
in the material’s porous cavities that serve as microscopic
water tanks. Atoco founder Omar Yaghi shared the 2025 Nobel
Prize in chemistry for pioneering MOFs.
