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.
Gov. Spencer Cox declared a state of emergency Thursday, noting
every county is in a state of severe or extreme drought after
a dry winter marked by record warmth robbed Utah of its
snowpack and left rivers and streams running
low. The declaration opens the door for farmers
and ranchers to tap into federal funding and loans managed by
the state. It also gave state leaders another opportunity to
urge homeowners to cut back on watering their lawns and replace
some of their grass with less thirsty plants. … Cox
said about two-thirds of residential water is used outdoors and
pleaded with Utahns to stay vigilant and avoid watering too
much. But he said any restrictions are a decision for local
leaders and water districts, not for state officials.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has freed up $52 million that
water managers will use to replace three old turbines at Hoover
Dam as forecasters expect Lake Mead levels to plunge to
historic lows over the next two years. Previously, the federal
agency had said extremely low reservoir levels could
cause a 40 percent reduction in hydropower — a
concerning sign for utilities that rely on it throughout
Nevada, California and Arizona. Older turbines
cannot generate power below 1,035 feet in elevation at the
reservoir, and hydropower levels would have dropped from 1,302
megawatts to 382 megawatts, the agency said. … Record-low
Lake Mead levels are coming largely due to the Bureau of
Reclamation’s move to reduce flows out of Lake Powell — a
decision made to ensure water can keep flowing in the face of
the worst runoff season on record.
Republicans and Democrats took a bipartisan step — or perhaps
more precisely, a tiptoe — toward putting Congress’ imprint on
the debate over the costs of data centers. As the House
Appropriations Committee hammered out a $58 billion fiscal 2027
energy and water spending bill Wednesday, members reached rare
consensus on a bipartisan amendment that would empower the
Energy Department to start regulating data centers.
… The bipartisan amendment, which would spur the Energy
Department to improve data centers’ water and energy
efficiency, was a signal that both parties are feeling
the public pressure around energy and data centers ahead of the
midterms.
For the first time in roughly a century, spring-run Chinook
salmon are swimming in the North Yuba River. And the program
that put them there just got funded for another year. The
Yuba Water Board of Directors approved a $500,000 grant to the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Tuesday to
continue the salmon reintroduction program in
the upper reaches of the North Yuba River watershed. The
two-year-old pilot program has already placed hundreds of
thousands of salmon eggs and adult fish into a 12-mile stretch
of gravel riverbed above Downieville. The process works in
two phases. CDFW biologists inject pre-fertilized eggs directly
into the gravel at the bottom of the river, mimicking natural
spawning conditions. They also release adult salmon to lay eggs
naturally.
Of all the risks farmers face in the San Joaquin Valley –
floods, droughts, fluctuating commodity prices, labor and its
costs – one now dominates their lives. The very land they work
is sinking beneath their feet. This phenomenon, known as
subsidence, threatens agricultural and other
infrastructure and incurs staggering repair costs.
… Subsidence has strained relations among farmers who
disagree on which pumping – or whose – causes the problem, how
to pay for repairs, and how to satisfy the various needs of the
state and the owners and managers of the damaged canals.
… Tribal water rights are an important—and often poorly
understood—component of California’s water rights system. These
rights are essential to the economy and well-being of
California’s Tribes in the same way that water rights are
critical for its cities and agriculture. Tribal water rights
also play an increasingly significant role in regional
water management in California and on the Colorado
River. … This report aims to shed light on
Tribal water rights. To understand the current state of these
rights, we provide an overview of their history, an analysis of
the approaches that have helped Tribes succeed in quantifying
their water rights, and a review of the contemporary exercise
of these rights—including in basins where water is fully
allocated. We conclude with a brief discussion of opportunities
under federal and state law for other Tribes to quantify or
otherwise protect their water resources.
U.S. Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla introduced new
legislation aiming to curb the spread and eradicate the
invasive golden mussel across California. The two senators,
both Democrats, introduced the golden mussel Eradication and
Control Act of 2026 to expedite wiping out the invasive mussel.
… Padilla said the bill would invest in “immediate steps” to
prevent the mussel’s invasive by implementing new technology,
inspection stations and rapid response programs to better
address this invasive species and protect our fragile Delta
ecosystems,” Padilla said. Since arriving in California
in October 2024, golden mussels have wreaked havoc on water
systems and infrastructure across the state, as the
mussels latch onto pumps and pipes compromising water delivery,
clogging water systems and impacting agricultural production.
The Trump Administration awarded a new, no-bid contract to a
company that’s being sued for allegedly failing to keep the
Tijuana sewage crisis at bay. And two men who work for agencies
on either side of the contract also worked together previously
at the Environmental Protection Agency during Trump’s first
term. In April, the federal government re-hired Veolia,
one of the world’s largest private operators of water, waste
and energy services, to run the South Bay International
Wastewater Treatment Plant at the U.S.-Mexico border. Veolia
has been the private contractor operating and maintaining the
plant for years. But recently it became the target of several
lawsuits filed by residents, a Coronado school district and
environmental groups that allege the plant has violated the
Clean Water Act under Veolia’s stewardship.
… Public uproar has echoed across the Tahoe area since April,
when our yearlong Mother Jones investigation revealed that, in
California, the fastest-growing use of glyphosate—the main
ingredient in Roundup—is to spray forested areas, including
this massive new project around Lake Tahoe. … As our
investigation revealed, the deployment of glyphosate in
California’s forestlands has been growing for decades, driven
in part by the worsening fires, as companies and government
officials scramble to harvest burned wood and replant trees for
future timber sales. Glyphosate is among the effective
methods—and the Forest Service says the cheapest—to get pine
trees to grow back faster, as it kills any other plant that
might compete for sunlight, soil nutrients, and water.
After a public hearing, the City Council on May 11 unanimously
approved the Seal Beach 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and
the 2025 Water Shortage Contingency Plan. The plans were
state-mandated. … California law requires urban water
suppliers that serve more than 3,000 customers—or supply more
than 3,000 acre-feet of water a year—has to submit an Urban
Water Management Plan to the California Department of Water
Resources every five years. … “Imported supplies are
obtained through MWDOC, a member agency of the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan), while
local groundwater is extracted from the Orange County
Groundwater Basin, which is managed and replenished by the
Orange County Water District (OCWD),” [Public Works Director
Iris] Lee wrote.
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.
