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 House passed legislation Thursday that would make more than
a dozen changes to the Clean Water Act, including establishing
new procedures to reduce lawsuits and limiting states’
authority to block infrastructure due to environmental
concerns. The “PERMIT Act” passed 221-205. … [T]he bill would
end protections under the Clean Water Act for ephemeral streams
and limit states’ ability to block energy projects due to water
quality concerns. It would establish strict timelines for when
environmental groups could file a lawsuit challenging a permit
authorizing the destruction of wetlands. Another provision
would make it harder for individuals, municipalities and
advocacy groups to sue over unauthorized water pollution
discharges.
Other Clean Water Act and wetland protection news:
Snow cover across the West was the lowest December 7 snow cover
amount in the MODIS satellite record (since 2001), at 90,646
square miles. … Snow drought is most severe across much
of the Sierra Nevada in California, the
Cascade Range in Washington and Oregon, the Blue Mountains of
Oregon, and the Great Basin in Nevada, with
snow water equivalent (SWE) in most of these basins at less
than 50% of median. Rain across the West increased soil
moisture and reservoir levels. However, the continued
above-normal temperatures forecast across the West may worsen
snow drought conditions.
In a rare public statement on contentious water use
negotiations, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo urged the seven Colorado
River Basin states to come to an agreement as time
runs out to strike one. Lombardo thanked Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum in a letter dated Tuesday for an invitation to a
meeting in Washington, D.C., this week with all the states’
governors and appointed negotiators. Though it didn’t happen,
Lombardo asked Burgum to reschedule it for January “as the
risks of inaction continue to grow.” … The letter comes less
than a week before the start of the Colorado River Water Users
Association conference in Las Vegas.
California public officials, scientists and coastal advocates
rang the alarm over the continued pollution of the Tijuana
River into the Pacific Ocean and nearby communities on the
Mexican border, describing the situation as one of the worst
public health and environmental disasters in the country and
around the world. … The Thursday [California Senate
Environmental Quality Committee] hearing invited a series of
panelists to explain the multifaceted issue to the public,
including oceanographers, air pollution experts and public
health experts, among others. … It is estimated that 40
million gallons of rancid sewage are dumped into the Pacific
Ocean every day, totaling billions of gallons per year,
according to the San Diego Coastkeeper.
… “[I]n California, where we depend on water, we got to make
sure that we have enough water to keep agriculture going,” said
farmer Joe Del Bosque, who operates Del Bosque Farms in western
Fresno County. … On Thursday, he welcomed us onto his farm to
share his thoughts on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Action 5
plan, one they say will help fulfill President Donald Trump’s
executive order to ‘strengthen California’s water resilience’.
According to the Westlands Water District, it’s a plan that
would provide a yearly increase of roughly 85,000 acre feet for
those getting water deliveries south of the Delta. … He [Del
Bosque] acknowledged the federal action and said it goes a long
way in improving their confidence for the future.
The Chandler City Council unanimously rejected to rezone 10
acres of land for a proposed new data center at their meeting
Thursday night. The project has generated significant public
interest, especially after former Arizona Senator Kyrsten
Sinema spoke in favor of the project at an October Planning and
Zoning Committee hearing. … Representatives for the
project have said the planned facility would use a closed-loop
cooling system, a method they argue requires significantly less
water than traditional evaporative cooling. … However,
experts caution that water usage goes beyond what happens at
the site itself.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power to inspect nearly 100
drinking water reservoirs and storage tanks over concerns about
improper maintenance, the agency announced Thursday. The EPA
identified violations of the Safe Drinking Water
Act, such as unprotected openings and inconsistent
storage system cleaning, during a July 2024 inspection,
according to a news release. The LADWP said in a statement that
it entered into a consent order with the EPA on Dec. 3 to
resolve concerns raised from the EPA’s 2024 inspection of 18
water storage tanks without litigation.
On December 8, 2025, the California Court of Appeal issued its
decision in Dreher v. City of Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power, affirming Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power’s budget-based tiered water rates for
single-dwelling unit customers. The Court rejected Patz v. City
of San Diego’s strict interpretation of Proposition 218 in
several key respects, finding: agencies may base tiered rates
on source-of-supply costs even when supplies are commingled;
tier breakpoints do not require cost-based justification; and
agencies may rely on peak pumping and storage costs to support
higher rates in upper tiers.
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board or
Board) returned the Kern County Subbasin to the Department of
Water Resources’ (DWR) jurisdiction under the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) on December 8, 2025. On
September 17th, the State Water Board approved Resolution No.
2025-0029 directing the Board’s Office of Sustainable
Groundwater Management staff to send a letter to DWR
formalizing the return of the Kern County Subbasin to DWR’s
jurisdiction.
Juvenile coho salmon have been documented in a tributary of the
Russian River in Mendocino County for the first time since
1991, state officials announced Thursday. According to
the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Pinoleville
Pomo Nation Water Resource Specialist and Yurok tribal member
Dakota Perez Gonzalez discovered several young coho salmon in
Ackerman Creek north of Ukiah in June. After the juvenile
salmon were discovered in an isolated pool that was drying, the
tribe and CDFW partnered on a rescue effort, Perez Gonzalez
said. The fish were transported to Warm Springs Fish Hatchery
in Geyserville, where they are being raised in CDFW’s
broodstock program.
Arizona State Senator Janae Shamp has introduced legislation
aimed at banning the addition of fluoride chemicals to the
state’s public water systems, according to a press release from
the Arizona Senate Republicans. SB 1019, filed ahead of the
2026 legislative session, would prohibit individuals and
political subdivisions from introducing fluoride or
fluoride-containing compounds into drinking water supplied by
public systems. … Arizona lawmakers argue that
fluoridation entails ongoing costs for chemicals, equipment and
maintenance, and say those funds could be better allocated to
infrastructure upgrades or water conservation efforts.
Volunteers planted 250 native trees at Hidden Valley Nature
Center on Dec. 5 as part of an effort to restore
habitat along the Santa Ana River. The project,
organized by Trout Unlimited and the Arbor Day Foundation with
support from industrial gas company Linde, replaced invasive
species with native cottonwoods, sycamores and willows. …
Over time, the trees will shade the river to keep water
temperatures cool for wildlife, stabilize soil to reduce
erosion and filter pollutants from stormwater runoff. The
project is also expected to help mitigate climate change-driven
flooding impacts along the Santa Ana floodplain.
California cities pay far more for water on average than
districts that supply farms — with some urban water agencies
shelling out more than $2,500 per acre-foot of surface water,
and some irrigation districts paying nothing, according to new
research. A report published today by researchers with the
UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and
advocates with the Natural Resources Defense Council shines a
light on vast disparities in the price of water across
California, Arizona and
Nevada. … Their overarching conclusion:
One of the West’s most valuable resources has no consistent
valuation – and sometimes costs nothing at all.
Coho salmon have pushed more than 90 miles up California’s
Russian River, reaching the watershed’s upper basin for the
first time in more than three decades — the latest of many
recent milestones for the endangered fish. State wildlife
officials confirmed Thursday that a handful of young coho were
spotted over the summer in Ackerman Creek, a tributary of the
Russian River near Ukiah, in Mendocino County. The juveniles
are believed to have been spawned by adults that migrated from
the Pacific Ocean on a course rife with human-imposed
obstacles, including sediment washed in from forest clear-cuts
and water reductions due to agricultural pumping.
Utah’s 2026 water year is only in its third month, but the
first two have already provided “a bit of whiplash” between
record-breaking precipitation and record-breaking warmth,
federal snowpack experts say. It’s why they say Utah’s snowpack
has gotten off to a “slow start,” ending up just 46% of normal
by the end of November. “Things started very strong. … Then
our weather turned hot and dry,” wrote Jordan Clayton, a
hydrologist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service and
supervisor of the Utah Snow Survey, in its first water report
update of the new water year. Last month was Utah’s
warmest November since at least 1895, according to federal
climate data released this week.
Incompatible pumping allocations being considered by two
groundwater agencies in north Kings County have prompted a
blizzard of responses, and even some accusations, from farmers
and multiple entities. The South Fork Kings Groundwater
Sustainability Agency (GSA) and Mid-Kings River GSA each had
draft pumping allocation policies out for public comment.
… The allocation amounts differ significantly, with
Mid-Kings proposing to allow its farmers to pump a base amount
of 1.43 acre feet per acre of land, which is more than double
South Fork’s proposed base allocation of .66 of an acre foot
per acre of land. That discrepancy initiated opposition
from South Fork farmers.
Registration for our first water tour of 2026 along the
lower
Colorado River is now open, and the bus will fill
up quickly! You can also find more information in this post on
next year’s programming calendar packed with engaging tours,
workshops and conferences, including the Water
101 Workshop, the Central Valley
Tour and the Bay-Delta Tour.
Federal lawmakers have introduced the bipartisan
Floodplain Enhancement and Recovery Act to reduce regulatory
barriers that slow or prevent ecosystem restoration in Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)-mapped floodplains. The
legislation … aims to streamline approvals for low-risk
floodplain restoration projects by reducing costly permitting
fees, shortening review timelines, and allowing certified
engineers to verify that projects will not harm
infrastructure. Trout Unlimited and other
environmental organizations across the country …
strongly support the
bill, emphasizing that reconnecting rivers with
their natural floodplains reduces flood risks, improves
water quality, enhances wildlife habitat, and lowers long-term
community costs.
… Trump’s executive order pushed the Bureau of Reclamation to
modify how it operates the Central Valley Project, a complex of
reservoirs — including Lake Shasta — and canals that captures
runoff from Northern California mountains and supplies water
agencies in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Last week,
the bureau announced an operational modification that would
increase annual water deliveries by 130,000 to 180,000
acre-feet from the Central Valley Project and another 120,000
to 220,000 from the State Water Project, the latter chiefly
generated from the Oroville Dam on the Feather River. … The
announcement sparked reactions, both pro and con, that reflect
the state’s long-running water allocation battles. –Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
After fishing out more than 25,000 pounds of underwater junk
from Lake Tahoe, divers are gearing up for another round. On
Thursday, environmental nonprofit Clean Up the Lake plans to
start a multi-year effort to remove trash from deeper parts of
the lake, where divers expect to find bigger and heavier items
than in shallower areas. … In addition to
collecting underwater garbage, Clean Up the Lake’s divers look
for invasive species and send any samples they
find to the California Department of Agriculture for further
analysis. The team is also beginning to monitor for algae and
keeping an eye out for harmful algal blooms.
