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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.
We occasionally bold words in the text to ensure the water connection is clear.
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.
California is getting plenty of rain this winter — but what’s
really needed is snow. While record high temperatures have
ensured that a series of massive Pacific storms known as
atmospheric rivers dump heavy rain across the West, the balmy
weather has led to one of the lowest snow covers since 2001.
The forecast calls for more rain this week. With all the
warmth, precipitation has fallen as rain instead of snow across
many basins, leading to snow drought … The threats created by
lack of snow in winter or limited overall precipitation are
actually similar: wildfires, future drought and low reservoir
levels. The West’s water supplies are built on snow, which
provides California with 30 percent of its supply.
The Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
approved a pumping allocation over objections from neighboring
agencies and without any indication it will be approved by the
state. … The Mid-Kings board approved a pumping allocation of
1.43 acre feet per acre of land, more than twice that of the
neighboring South Fork Kings GSA, which is proposing .66 of an
acre foot per acre of land for its farmers. South Fork and
several other entities have objected to Mid-Kings’ allocation,
saying it’s far too generous. … The uncertainty about
state reaction is compounded by the fact that the state isn’t
meeting with water managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which
covers most of Kings County, because of a pending legal action.
When the Colorado Water Conservation Board voted unanimously
last month to approve the $99 million purchase of the Shoshone
water rights from Xcel Energy, Western Slope communities called
it a “once-in-a-lifetime” deal. In Grand County, the decision
lands closer to home. For people living at the headwaters of
the Colorado River, it’s a promise that water will keep flowing
west, offering a safeguard for ranchers, recreation businesses
and the river itself. … By securing them permanently for
instream flows, the Colorado River District and its partners
ensured that water will continue downstream even if the aging
plant shuts down.
Local officials are again distributing air purifiers to
residents inundated with pollution from the Tijuana River
sewage crisis after they botched their first attempt to do so.
The first batch of 400 air purifiers distributed through a
lottery system under former District 1 Supervisor Nora Vargas
lacked the necessary filters to clean the gases in the air.
Specifically, the first purifiers lacked the necessary
potassium permanganate and charcoal to effectively filter toxic
gases. A contractor also failed to transfer applicant
information to the San Diego County Air Pollution Control
District, forcing people to reapply for the purifiers without
notification.
The southern steelhead trout has been low in numbers in recent
years, but one Huntington Beach high school is now prepared to
lend a hand toward saving the species. Edison High held a
ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning for an expansion to
its campus Innovation Lab, where it will house the endangered
fish through a partnership with the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife. The new system, funded by the Resource
Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains through a
CDFW grant, will protect up to 650 trout rescued from creeks
impacted by drought, wildfire and debris flows. … Two
large holding tanks will contain the trout, while a water
cleansing system ensures they are safe until a new habitat can
be found.
A local renewable energy and critical minerals company is
poised to go public through a merger with a New York-based
special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a move aimed
at bolstering U.S. energy security and domestic supply chains
for electric vehicles and advanced technologies, according to a
CTR press release. … If completed, the business combination
would list the combined company on a major U.S. stock exchange,
providing capital to accelerate development of ACR’s flagship
Hell’s Kitchen project at the Salton Sea.
… Imperial County officials and residents have long seen
the Salton Sea region — dubbed “Lithium Valley” — as a
potential economic boon, bringing jobs and revenue while
addressing environmental challenges around the shrinking sea.
Dams in the United States may be in worse condition than
previously understood. More than 16,700 dams across the country
are classified as high hazard potential as of 2024, according
to the Association of State Dam Safety Officials. Over
2,500 of these dams are in poor condition. But with newly
utilized radar technology, scientists at Virginia Tech are
revealing dams across the United States that may have crumbling
infrastructure hidden from view of safety inspectors. … What
they found was shocking to them: Many dams that should have
been stabilized were still sinking, potentially impacting the
dam’s structure.
The year 2025 saw several big water issues hit the news, both
nationally and in some of the biggest produce-growing states.
Many of these stories will continue into 2026’s headlines. For
example, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers set a water
milestone late in the year when they finally released their
long-awaited updated definition of Waters of the U.S. with
implementation expected in February or March of 2026.
… As the year came to a close, California’s largest
irrigation district released its economic impact review report,
which found that water restrictions had wide-reaching negative
impacts on the state and its people.
The training and use of artificial-intelligence systems such as
ChatGPT might already result in more annual carbon emissions
than New York City and more water consumption than all the
bottled water drank globally, according to new research. In one
of the first studies to focus specifically on the environmental
impact of AI, a new report in the data-science journal Patterns
estimated that the technology’s water consumption in particular
was likely far higher than previous estimates. The study
indicates that both AI’s carbon emissions and its water
consumption are growing rapidly, thanks to its surging power
use.
To find Charles Mallory Hatfield, you usually had to look up.
… For decades, Hatfield danced up and down the state,
promising a heavenly waterfall to a drought-bedeviled world.
Once contracted, he and his brother Paul would quench the
thirst of Central Valley farmers or refill the waterways for
coastal citizens who, without his help, would be reduced to
drinking dust. His quiet alchemy, conducted up on those wooden
platforms out in the hills, always seemed to work.
… Today, Utah bolsters its snowpack by as much as 12% in
a given year, solely through cloud seeding — a
sizable return, considering the state’s needs, but nothing like
what Hatfield could promise.
… When seven state negotiators took to the stage for the
annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference, they
didn’t have much progress to report about how the river’s main
reservoirs will be managed once the current operational rules
end in fall 2026. Instead, for the second time this week, many
of them used their time to highlight the same concerns they’ve
shared for years. With the clock ticking down, federal
officials started to ratchet up the pressure. … If the
states agree, then federal officials have said they will use
the states’ proposal to manage the Colorado River’s water
supply.
December has been a very dry month across California. But
that’s about to change, with three atmospheric rivers forecast
to hit the state through Christmas. The pattern that brought an
onslaught of destructive atmospheric rivers to the Pacific
Northwest in recent days is now shifting south. … More
than a foot of rain and seven feet of snow could fall
across parts of the northern Sierra over the next
week. Cities such as San Francisco, Sacramento and Los
Angeles could receive about a month’s worth of rain or more
over the next week to 10 days. … The latest round of
storms could make 2025 the third consecutive year with
above-average precipitation across California.
… On Monday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released its
monthly report, which projects a two-year hydrology outlook for
the operation of the nation’s two largest reservoirs: Lake
Powell and Lake Mead. … With the slow start to winter in
the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming), the
report showed a drop in Lake Powell’s projected 2026 inflow of
1 million acre-feet since the November forecast. Under the
“minimum” possible inflow, Lake Powell would fall below the
surface-elevation level of 3,490 feet needed to generate
hydropower by October 2026 and stay there until spring runoff
briefly bumps up reservoir levels in summer 2027; but the water
level would again dip below 3,490 in the fall of 2027.
A sudden infrastructure failure at the Trinity River Hatchery
on Nov. 7 forced the emergency release of hundreds of thousands
of juvenile fish and thousands of adult salmon into the Trinity
River after a trash rack collapsed and blocked most of the
facility’s water supply, according to state and federal
officials. The incident was disclosed publicly for the first
time during the Trinity Management Council’s quarterly meeting
on Dec. 10, when Derek Rupert, a fish biologist with the Bureau
of Reclamation’s Northern California Area Office, briefed
council members on what he described as a rare and serious
operational emergency.
John Vidovich, who runs Sandridge Partners LLC, one of Kings
County’s largest farming operations, was shut out of gaining a
seat on a groundwater agency for fear he would move native
water outside the area. Board members of the Empire Westside
Irrigation District voted 3-2 at their Dec. 15 meeting to keep
Ceil Howe Jr. as their representative on the South Fork Kings
Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA), rather than switch to
Vidovich. … Last July, Vidovich floated a proposal for
the Southwest Kings GSA – where he controls three of the five
board seats – to merge with the South Fork GSA. … More
recently, Sandridge Partners threatened to sue South Fork GSA
if it adopts a policy prohibiting movement of native
groundwater more than a mile outside its boundaries.
… Rich in biodiversity, the [Tijuana River] estuary is home
to hundreds of migratory bird species and endangered plant and
animal life. It’s also the site of a worsening
environmental crisis marked by billions of gallons of
wastewater that have spilled annually over the international
border in recent years, the byproduct of Tijuana’s urban and
industrial growth fueled in part by U.S. trade
policies. When storms sweep the region, massive downpours
collide with poor or aging wastewater infrastructure, causing
sewage overflows and dragging the waste and urban runoff
through Tijuana communities to the
border. … inewsource spent months talking to more
than 100 people living and working near the Tijuana River. Many
say this place — their longtime home — is making them
sick.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has
introduced a new suite of weather forecasting models that are
driven by Artificial Intelligence and are expected to deliver
faster and more accurate predictions, the agency announced on
Wednesday. … The AI technology became operational and
available to forecasters early Wednesday morning. Erica Grow
Cei, a spokesperson for the National Weather Service, which is
the branch of NOAA responsible for forecasts, told CBS News
that the latest models do not intend to replace the traditional
ones that rely on complex mathematical equations, instead of
machine learning, in order to run.
The reservoir that was empty during the Palisades Fire, which
sparked major backlash, needs to be drained again. This time
backups are in place. As we near the one-year anniversary of
the wildfire, it’s reigniting fears in the community. It was
the center of controversy almost a year ago. The Santa Ynez
Reservoir in Pacific Palisades was offline when the fires
started. It is a critical reservoir for firefighting efforts.
… The reservoir has a capacity of 117 million gallons of
water, but it was closed for repairs during the Palisades Fire.
A report, however, found that even if the reservoir was full at
the time of the fires, the system would have been quickly
overwhelmed.
A study from Westlands Water District lays out the difference
on the local economy between when farmers have water and when
they don’t. The district’s third economic impact report, which
was released Wednesday, compares 2022, a year following scant
rainfall and a 0% water allocation — later marginally increased
— with 2019, a plentiful water year and a 75% allocation.
… The study pegs $2.28 billion in direct impact from ag
in Westlands in 2022. Adding the indirect impact, ag activity
created $3.55 billion in total effect, leading to 27,657 jobs.
That’s a 28% decline in direct economic activity and a 25%
decline in total activity from 2019, when farm activity created
35,114 jobs.
… Who decides the needs and uses of stored water? Who
owns it? It is a fascinating debate that has raged for years,
and the U.S. Supreme Court may be about to weigh in on it
again. A case originating in California has brought the issue
back to the forefront of western jurisprudence. … The case,
City of Fresno, et al. v. United States, et al., began with the
2014 drought, and the Bureau’s decision to withhold available
water from part of the Central Valley Project. Irrigation
districts and municipal suppliers on the east side of the San
Joaquin Valley received a “zero allocation,” while the Bureau
released water to other districts. … Is the Bureau
required to pay for those property losses when taking that
water for other uses it decided were more important? –Written by Greg Walcher, former director of the Colorado
Department of Natural Resources.
