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 agriculture industry’s seemingly bottomless thirst
gives the Valley another distinction: It is losing its
groundwater – the essential stores of freshwater in underground
aquifers – at a rate among the fastest on Earth. As a result,
the Valley is sinking. Land subsidence is triggered by farmers
drilling thousands of feet deep to tap into the aquifers and
pumping the water to the surface. As water is sucked from the
aquifers, layers of clay between them and the topsoil compacts,
and the ground sinks. Last year, researchers from Stanford
University used satellite imagery to determine that in most
years since 2006, some areas of the Valley floor have sunk by a
foot a year.
A New Mexico Supreme Court order reorganizing the state’s water
courts goes into effect Wednesday, Oct. 1, the Office of the
Administrative Courts announced this week. The order creates a
“regional structure for water courts more closely aligned with
the boundaries of New Mexico’s stream systems,” a news release
announced, with designated water judges presiding over water
law cases in a particular regions. Prior to the order, each of
the state’s 13 judicial districts had one water law judge.
Under the order, five district court judges are appointed to
serve as water court judges in the three regions.
The Water Forum has announced the release of the DRAFT Water
Forum 2050 Agreement, a landmark update to the regional accord
that has guided efforts to balance the Sacramento region’s
water supply reliability with the protection of the lower
American River for the past 25 years. First signed in
2000, the Water Forum Agreement brought together business
leaders, citizen groups, environmental advocates, water
providers, and local governments to address growing water
demands while preserving the environmental and recreational
values of the lower American River.
Tidal rivers, which are a source of water for drinking and
irrigation, are increasingly vulnerable to saltwater intrusion,
according to the findings of an international research team.
… Saltwater entering these freshwater supplies can tip the
salinity scales, making the water unsuitable for human and
animal consumption or for irrigating crops. In a global
perspective paper, published in Environmental Science &
Technology Letters, the team highlighted how a combination of
climate change impacts — including prolonged drought and
rapid sea-level rise — along with localized human activities,
are intensifying the increase in salt in vital freshwater
sources.
The Riverdale Park Tract Community Service
District (RPTCSD) has notified the Stanislaus County Board
of Supervisors that levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid
(PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in local groundwater
have exceeded state notification levels, according to a letter
submitted for discussion at the next board meeting. … While
these levels surpass the notification standard, they remain
below the response level of 70 ppt, which would require
immediate action to remove the water source from service.
… The BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] states that the federal
Indian trust responsibility is a legal obligation under which
the U.S. “has charged itself with moral obligations of the
highest responsibility and trust” toward Indian tribes.
… If the BIA has a moral obligation to the Navajo
people, is it moral to take away their water rights or allow
the sale of the water rights while they are advocating or
holding in trust for the Navajo people our land, water and
fiduciary trusts? Is it not a moral responsibility to make
sure those who you are looking after have water while they
don’t have a permanent government? … I encourage my
people to consider the impact of the sale of our water supply
and rights for a small portion of the tribe. –Written by Navajo Nation constituent member Neal
Riggs.
Unanimously, the board agreed to have Chief Administrative
Officer Andy Pickett sign a letter of intent to contribute to
the project’s funding in some form — or at least work with the
district to find and secure funding.
Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Ann Patterson and Audrey
Cho to the Delta Stewardship Council. … Patterson, of
Sacramento, has been appointed as a member of the Council’s
sevenmember board, effective September 24, 2025. … Cho, of
Sacramento, has been appointed to the Council’s executive team
as legislative and policy advisor, effective October 2, 2025.
The Feather River Mosaic Mural Project is nearing an end in the
city of Oroville. It’s been three years in the making,
involving more than 1,000 kids creating the drawings and
placing mosaic tiles on 60 16′ by 18″ panels. When it’s
finished, there will be nearly 600 feet of beautiful mosaic
mural wall installed along Table Mountain Boulevard,
illustrating the journey of the Feather River from its
headwaters in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade mountains
to its convergence with the Sacramento River.
… [A] bill was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom that
would keep emergency flow regulations in place for two Klamath
tributaries. Supporters hailed the new law as essential for
protecting salmon habitat and tribal rights. The Scott and
Shasta rivers, major Klamath tributaries, have been under
emergency drought regulations for years. Siskiyou County
farmers, who pushed against the bill through lobbying
associations, were required to limit water take to keep minimum
flows in place after fish populations plummeted during a
drought from 2020 to 2023.
October 1 marks the start of Water Year 2026. Hydrologists and
water experts use October as the start of the water year,
especially in the Western United States, when the majority of
precipitation shifts from rain to mountain snow, and snowpack
begins accumulating. … Much of the Upper Colorado River
Basin will be entering Water Year 2026 in some state of
drought. On October 1, 2024, only 7% of the Upper Colorado
River Basin was experiencing drought conditions.
A pair of bills that arose out of the ongoing fight over
groundwater in eastern Kern County’s desert have come to very
different conclusions – one awaiting the Governor’s signature
and the other tabled indefinitely. Both bills address a process
known as groundwater adjudication, in which a judge decides how
much water is available in a basin and then assigns pumping
rights to various users. These cases can go on for up to
10 years as courts sift through rights going back more than 100
years and try to find and engage with every pumper in the
disputed region.
As San Diego council members prepare to vote on major water and
sewer rate hikes, the city’s independent budget analyst warns
that higher rates are all but unavoidable in order to keep the
Public Utilities Department afloat — and that not raising rates
would hurt customers in other ways. The City Council is
scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a proposal that could raise
water rates for San Diego customers by more than 60% and sewer
rates by more than 30% over the next four years.
… Without additional revenue, the IBA predicts that the
PUD will need to cut its expenses by slashing either its
operating costs — likely by cutting staff — or its spending on
capital improvements.
… Get ready for a partial federal government shutdown,
starting at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, that promises to be unlike
any other. … Go to the budget office’s website and
you’ll be referred to specific agencies, where some detail
their plans and some don’t. … Rep. Doris Matsui,
D-Sacramento, noted that, based on past shutdowns, the EPA will
suspend inspections at the “most hazardous waste sites, as well
as drinking water and chemical facilities.” She also warned
that efforts to address PFAS — often referred to as “forever
chemicals” that are linked to potential health risks, including
cancer — could face delays during the shutdown.
A number of Arizona cities have adopted rules restricting water
deliveries to users who use a lot of water. … The notion of
large water users is often thought to be targeted at data
centers, which are top of mind for many Arizonans at the
moment. But they can also include places like golf courses and
some manufacturing facilities. A new study looks at the kinds
of rules cities have imposed, and it found that cities have, by
and large, taken different approaches. Sarah Porter is director
of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State
University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy. She joined
The Show to talk more about what the research shows.
Ecosystem restoration is an effective way to improve conditions
for recreation, wildlife, and more. Yet permitting—while
necessary for ensuring projects are well designed and
beneficial—has long slowed restoration projects across
California. Is that now shifting? We spoke with the State Water
Board’s Paul Hann and Sustainable Conservation’s Erika Lovejoy
about a new general order that’s changing the game.
… An ad hoc group of six Colorado River experts began
assembling reports in 2025. They have been dubbed the Traveling
Wilburys of the Colorado River Basin. … Big Pivots
convened a conversation with several of the report authors on
Sept. 18, a week after their latest report had been issued.
…That report delivered the numbers that collectively showed
dramatically increased risk during the upcoming two years of
the dams on the Colorado River becoming dysfunctional.
Gov. Gavin Newsom may greenlight a half-billion-dollar effort
to widen a North Bay highway [Highway 37] that Caltrans has
acknowledged is sinking under its own weight. … [T]he
sinking expressway was surrounded by sinking levees, which
could be overwhelmed by the more intense and more frequent
storms already occurring due to climate change. … The highway
blocks flows into and out of the wetland habitat, cutting off
healthy functions of the ecosystem. … Caltrans has
agreed to open up more channels under the roadway, raise the
bridge over Tolay Creek in Sonoma County and open the channel
underneath to allow more movement of water.
As US states increasingly pass laws to limit PFAS chemicals in
consumer products, a debate is heating up over a California
bill that proposes banning the sale of cookware with
intentionally added “forever chemicals” beginning in 2030.
intentionally added PFAS beginning in January 2028.
… The bill’s supporters argue that PTFE from cookware
adds to the flow of forever chemicals in household waste,
adding to the costly public burden of treating PFAS-tainted
wastewater. … A coalition of
cookware industry leaders, however, is pushing back against
similar proposed bans across the country.
Five individuals have been caught illegally mining along
several California waterways, state officials
announced. According to a Sept. 26 news
release from the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, the citations began in August of last year, when
authorities found someone operating a suction dredge — a
powerful tool that sucks materials out of underwater cracks and
crevices — on the Salmon River. … According to the CDFW,
this motorized equipment can harm fish and their native habitat
by releasing contaminants, causing erosion and potentially
creating more favorable conditions for the invasive signal
crayfish.
