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.
In a momentous decision for the Western Slope, state water
officials unanimously approved a controversial proposal to use
two coveted Colorado River water rights to help the river
itself. Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board
voted to accept water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant into
its Instream Flow Program, which aims to keep water in streams
to help the environment. The decision Wednesday is a historic
step forward in western Colorado’s yearslong effort to secure
the $99 million rights permanently. But some Front Range water
providers pushed back during the hearings, worried that the
deal could hamper their ability to manage the water supply for
millions of Colorado customers.
… The Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona drew
17 proposals for public-private partnerships and advanced four
of them at a Nov. 19 board meeting. They include schemes to
build desalination plants on the California
coast or in the Gulf of California, to produce water
that can be traded for shares of Colorado River water.
… Several people, including representatives of the
Sierra Club and the Chemehuevi Tribe, viewed the board’s
meeting remotely and delivered pleas that the state not finance
a plan to tap groundwater under the Mojave
Desert in California. … WIFA board members said they
had rejected it as part of Arizona’s solution.
After a brief reprieve from storms, another rainmaker is set to
hit California on Thursday and soak parts of the state that
have already set November precipitation records.
… Rainfall is generally expected to remain below a
quarter of an inch in the Bay Area, but locally higher totals
are possible, especially if showers are stronger than
forecast. Showers are expected to reach Southern
California by Thursday afternoon and stick around through
Friday. … The system, once again, won’t bring
much snow to the Sierra Nevada. The bulk of the
precipitation is expected to remain along the coast, but any
moisture that does reach the Sierra will probably fall as rain
rather than snow below 7,000 feet.
Other weather and water supply news around the West:
As we wrap up our year at the Water Education Foundation,
we are busy looking ahead to our 2026 slate of
engaging tours, workshops and conferences on key water
topics in California and across the West.
And don’t miss the return of our Lower Colorado River
Tour March 11-13, on which we take you from Hoover
Dam to the U.S.-Mexico border and through the Imperial and
Coachella valleys. Registration opens Dec. 10.
Plus, Giving Tuesday is right after
Thanksgiving and a national day to support nonprofits. You can
support water education across California and the West on Dec.
2 or anytime by donating
here!
… Known as the Nestor Tract, all 105 acres or so were once
prime habitat for species native to the Central Valley,
including giant garter snakes, and relatively abundant in the
Natomas Basin. This is, historically, a flood-prone swath of
wetlands along the Sacramento River, running from the southern
rice fields of Sutter County down to the north of Sacramento.
… That balance, made possible by greater levees and flood
protections, has existed for more than 20 years, as bartered by
Sacramento and Sutter County, and orchestrated by The Natomas
Basin Conservancy. But proposals from Sacramento County now
threaten to upend that arrangement, leaving the capital city,
Sutter County and dwindling species like the giant garter snake
with uncertain fates.
President Donald Trump’s administration moved Wednesday to roll
back protections for imperiled species and the places they
live, reviving a suite of changes to Endangered Species
Act regulations from the Republican’s first term that
were blocked under former Democratic President Joe Biden. The
proposed changes include the elimination of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s “blanket rule” that automatically protects
animals and plants when they are classified as
threatened. … [E]nvironmentalists warned the
changes could cause yearslong delays in efforts to save species
such as the monarch butterfly, Florida manatee, California
spotted owl and North American wolverine.
As the threat of wildfires looms larger each year, the Bureau
of Reclamation’s California-Great Basin Region is proactively
igniting a regional initiative to protect water
infrastructure, ecosystems, and
communities. Leading this effort is John Hutchings, the
Regional Wildland Fire Coordinator. … Walking along the
thinning foliage of the hillside at Shasta Dam in northern
California, Hutchings explains that the major aspect of the
Fire Program includes strategic proactive removal of overgrown
vegetation. Hutchings emphasizes that his role diverges from
traditional fire initiatives; he does not manage a fire
suppression force but focuses on watershed and
resource management tailored to combat the growing wildfire
risk.
Just over a year after the historic removal of four
hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, the Klamath Basin is
taking massive steps toward restoring its habitat with the help
of more than $30 million. These grants focus on the
conservation of salmon and other anadromous fish species for
both ecological benefits and for fisheries. California
Department of Fish and Wildlife has invested in about 13
projects throughout the Klamath Basin, working with multiple
organizations to complete them and track the lasting impacts.
If heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil and gas
continues unchecked, thousands of hazardous sites across the
United States risk being flooded from sea level rise by the
turn of the century, posing serious health risks to nearby
communities, according to a new study. Researchers identified
5,500 sites that store, emit or handle sewage, trash, oil, gas
and other hazards that could face coastal flooding by 2100,
with much of the risk already locked in due to past emissions.
But more than half the sites are projected to face flood risk
much sooner — as soon as 2050. … Most of the sites —
nearly 80% — are in Louisiana, Florida, New Jersey, Texas,
California, New York and Massachusetts.
Facing challenges over cost and constitutional liberties, the
Arizona Department of Water Resources says a new groundwater
rule will promote housing development, not hamper it. The
Arizona Department of Resources established the groundwater
offset rule in 2024 to allow developers to build more housing
on over-pumped and depleting groundwater aquifers, forgoing the
traditional proof of a 100-year supply needed for a water
certificate. But the Home Builders Association of Central
Arizona, backed by legislative Republicans, says the department
overstepped its constitutional authority by pigeonholing
developers into the most expensive option when alternatives are
physically unavailable.
… A new report from the Value of Water Campaign — a coalition
of water organizations that advocates for increased investment
in water infrastructure — says the U.S. needs to invest $3.4
trillion in drinking water, stormwater and wastewater
infrastructure over the next 20 years to bring it up to date.
State and local governments could reasonably provide about $1.5
trillion of that investment, leaving a $2 trillion gap, the
authors say. That gap will increase if federal funding levels
go below those currently provided by the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
approved nominations Wednesday for key environment and
science-focused positions in the Trump administration. … The
panel approved the nomination of Timothy Petty for
deputy administrator at NOAA on a bipartisan 21-7
vote, with only Democrats voting in opposition. Petty has been
an aide to multiple members of Congress and on various
committees, handling matters on water, natural resources,
infrastructure, science and technology. He also served as
assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior
Department during the first Trump administration, and as the
acting assistant secretary in the George W. Bush
administration.
One of Lake Tahoe’s most popular state parks will reopen next
spring after being closed for three years for repairs. D.L.
Bliss State Park, on the lake’s southwest shoreline near
Emerald Bay, will reopen on May 21, state park officials
announced this week. … It was originally planned to cost
$2.8 million and take one summer to complete. But the Southern
California contractor who was awarded the low bid encountered
difficulties installing 3 miles of water lines. Workers dug a
six-foot deep trench across the park, but ran behind schedule,
encountering strict rules from the Tahoe Regional Planning
Agency that prohibit grading or digging after Oct. 15 each year
to prevent winter rains from washing silt and dirt into the
lake and threatening its famed bright blue clarity.
… Whereas most prior research has estimated effects of
exposure to extremely high levels of fluoride, we consider
exposure to levels of fluoride within the range typical in most
places and of greatest relevance to policy debates about
government water fluoridation. We use data from the nationally
representative (United States) High School and Beyond cohort,
characterize fluoride exposure from drinking water across
adolescence, adjust for confounders, and observe cognitive test
performance in both secondary school and at age ~60. We
find that children exposed to recommended levels of
fluoride in drinking water exhibit modestly
better cognition in secondary school, an advantage that is
smaller and no longer statistically significant at
age ~60.
California’s water year is off to a great start, thanks in
large part to the past week’s stormy stretch for the state. The
water year began on Oct. 1 and continues until Sept. 30 next
year. Since the start of the water year, Sacramento has seen
nearly 5 inches of rain at Executive Airport. That is
more than three times the normal amount of
rain for this point in the season. Stockton and
Modesto have also more than tripled the normal rainfall through
mid-November. … The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab
site in Soda Springs has recorded over 18 inches of
snow so far this water year. That’s right in line with
the normal value for mid-November.
Other weather and water supply news around the West:
The board overseeing the state agency charged with finding new
water supplies for Arizona is poised to approve as many as five
water importation proposals. … Details of the five
projects — two involving desalination plants and the others
relying on wastewater treatment, surface water and an
unidentified third source — remain secret until the full board
of the agency known as WIFA meets Wednesday. But the Fort
Mojave Indian Tribe and the National Parks Conservation
Association say it’s pretty clear EPCOR plans to rely on a
controversial pumping project in the remote
southeastern California desert — an area protected by
environmentalists for decades.
Other groundwater and desalination news around the West:
A major boost for Northern California’s struggling Chinook
salmon population is underway on Battle Creek, a tributary of
the Sacramento River. Earlier this month, biologists from the
Coleman National Fish Hatchery released approximately 263,000
juvenile late-fall Chinook salmon, with an additional 75,000
released last week. The timing couldn’t be better. A
series of winter storms is pushing higher flows through the
watershed, giving the young fish a better shot at making it
safely down the Sacramento River system and out to the Pacific
Ocean.
Mountain meadows make up a small percentage of the land area in
the Sierra Nevada, but not as small a percentage as once
thought. This is exciting news as they have an outsized impact,
often functioning as high-elevation floodplains. As snow melts
in the springtime, meadows act like a sponge for cold
water, holding on to it until the drier months of the
year when downstream communities need water most. They also act
as a biodiversity hotspot for birds, fish, amphibians, wetland
plants, and insects. And a new model is revealing that there
may be more meadows in the Sierra than previously
estimated.
On Nov. 6, 2025, the Colorado River Indian Tribes Tribal
Council made history with a unanimous vote that fundamentally
changes how the Colorado River is recognized under tribal law.
The council granted legal personhood status to the Colorado
River itself, making CRIT the first community anywhere to
bestow such recognition on the 1,450-mile waterway.
… Under the new status, the Colorado River gains three
significant protections under tribal law. First, the river has
the legal right to be protected. … Second, current and future
CRIT tribal councils must consider the river’s needs when
making decisions. … Third, CRIT now has explicit legal
mechanisms to address the damage that climate change has
inflicted—and continues to inflict—on the Colorado River.
Feelings were running high—and interest was evident—as hundreds
of people turned out for our fall conference last week in
Sacramento. The lunchtime program featured a panel of five
experts representing water interests from across the state.
… Associate center director Caity Peterson set the stage
for the day’s conversation by describing the symbiotic
relationship between California and the federal government when
it comes to managing the state’s water. “We rely on the federal
government for critical data, services, the expertise of agency
staff—and for money. Now that partnership is changing, and we
don’t know quite yet where things are going to land,” said
Peterson.
