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.
Downpours produced major impacts across California in October.
… The widespread drenching, however, didn’t translate into
large impacts on the California reservoir levels, data shows.
… California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, was at
57% of its total capacity through Wednesday, 5% above normal
for this time of year. … Lake Oroville, California’s
second largest reservoir, was at 55% of total capacity through
Wednesday, 2% above normal. … The October storm also
impacted the Sierra, where over a foot of snow fell in places.
As Chinook salmon continue to make progress in the Klamath
Basin following dam removal, a local organization is calling
for fish screens to protect both family farms and fish.
… KDD [Klamath Drainage District], which represents 12
large landowners covering 27,000 acres, most of which grow
grain, is emphasizing the urgency for fish screens. It says the
2016 Klamath Power and Facilities Agreement, signed by Oregon,
California, and the federal government, calls for these
governments to help protect landowners and put in measures like
fish screens, if needed.
San Diego County Water Authority officials expect wholesale
water rates to soar by as much as 150% over the next decade,
driven in part by the agency’s struggles to sell some of its
supply — struggles it expects to get worse because of San
Diego’s billion-dollar Pure Water project. A grim reality of
high water costs might persist for residents and businesses in
much of the region if the authority doesn’t find new buyers for
its water, according to a draft of the water authority’s
long-term financial plan presented to water officials on
Thursday.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released new and
updated planning tools that water systems across the country
can use to help prevent and respond to cybersecurity incidents.
These tools will help all public water systems protect access
to safe water and aid systems conducting risk and emergency
planning for cybersecurity. … The agency will also
continue to collaborate with water systems to implement best
management practices to swiftly address any cybersecurity
concerns as they arise.
Sacramento’s flood protection projects are falling behind and
that could have triggered a new building ban due to delays. A
similar moratorium was in effect for seven years up until 2015.
Now there’s been a last-minute effort to extend the Dec. 31
deadline. … ”There’s a lot of different flood threats
that could possibly happen in the Sacramento region; we’re not
called the river city for no reason,” said Sean de Guzman, the
flood operations manager at the California Department of Water
Resources. That’s why, back in 2007, state lawmakers set a
deadline requiring Sacramento to have a 200-year level of flood
protection by the end of this year.
… Mute swans are kind of like “aquatic feral pigs,” CDFW
spokesperson Melanie Weaver told SFGATE over the phone
Wednesday. Despite their striking physical appearance, the
birds pose a serious threat to Northern California’s marine
ecosystem, and homeowners now have the authority to shoot them
if they’re on their property, regardless of whether they have a
license, Weaver said. That’s because mute swans
unapologetically consume up to 8 pounds of aquatic vegetation
per day, destroying crucial food and habitat for native
species.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), often called
“forever chemicals”, are highly persistent and widely
distributed contaminants that pose a serious threat to drinking
water quality. In a study published in Water & Ecology, an
international team used bibliometric analysis of 1,281 Web of
Science–indexed publications (2003–2023) to document sustained
growth in research on PFASs in drinking water. For the first
time, the study integrates pollution pathways, monitoring, and
treatment into a single framework that directs researchers and
regulators to the key bottlenecks—namely, the challenges of
monitoring and removing short-chain and ether-based compounds
and safely managing concentrated treatment residuals.
The Kern County Water Agency hired its own former board
president as its new general manager Thursday at an annual base
salary of $525,000. Eric Averett, who apparently resigned his
board seat Oct. 8 though that wasn’t announced until Thursday,
will assume his new duties Nov. 24, according to the employment
agreement unanimously approved by the agency’s board of
directors. … It is a huge job that involves
juggling the needs of 13 often contentious, local agricultural
water districts, overseeing a network of canal systems and
providing water for residents in northeast Bakersfield all
while keeping an eye on what’s happening in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – among other
things.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced two recent key victories to
advance the Delta Conveyance Project — a critical
infrastructure project to safeguard California’s water supplies
amid a hotter, drier future. The administration secured a court
decision reversing a preliminary injunction that was previously
blocking pre-construction geotechnical work. Additionally, the
California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has submitted a
certification of consistency for the broader project to the
Delta Stewardship Council (DSC).
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority (IWVGA) and
Searles Valley Minerals have reached a comprehensive settlement
agreement, marking a significant step toward achieving
groundwater sustainability in the Indian Wells
Valley. The agreement states that both IWVGA and Searles have
permanently dropped (“dismissed with prejudice”) the separate
lawsuits they filed against each other. While the main,
comprehensive water rights lawsuit continues, Searles has
agreed not to challenge the scientific and technical findings
of the valley’s mandated Groundwater Sustainability Plan and
will instead work with the IWVGA to implement the plan.
… As the planet’s atmosphere has quickly warmed thanks to the
burning of fossil fuels, the amount of water available in the
world’s rivers, lakes, and reservoirs has shrunk. To
compensate, nations the world over have plundered the water
stored underground to irrigate crops and hydrate parched
citizens. But many of these hidden water reserves are being
sucked dry by humans quicker than they are being replenished
through rainfall and snowmelt, or through artificial
groundwater recharge. The cascading consequences are immense.
Next month, the seven Colorado River Basin states — Arizona,
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming —
are set to finalize a new framework for sharing a shrinking
resource. Billed as a modern compact for a hotter, drier
century, it will shape how the West survives in an age of
scarcity. Yet amid debates over drought, equity, and cutbacks,
one rapidly expanding demand remains almost invisible: the
immense water consumption of artificial intelligence and the
data centers that sustain it. –Written by nature photographer Rusty Childress.
… As part of DWR’s California Stream Gage Improvement Program
(CalSIP), DWR and Napa County are collaborating to bring five
stream gages online in the Napa River watershed, targeting data
gaps in the watershed and key tributaries which will help water
managers plan for dry periods and make faster emergency
decisions during flooding events. Made possible with
funding from the Budget Act of 2023, the CalSIP program is
enabling the revival and deployment of gages at five critical
sites in Napa County.
Utah leaders are extending a deadline for projects that may
help bring water to the Great Salt Lake because they say the
ongoing government shutdown makes it challenging to coordinate
with federal agencies. The Great Salt Lake Commissioner’s
Office had set a Friday deadline for government agencies,
nongovernment organizations, institutions and private entities
to submit their proposals to receive a share of $53 million in
grants for projects that support the Great Salt Lake or its
wetlands. However, it’s been pushed to Jan. 16, 2026, to allow
more time for the state to organize planning with the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is reminding
eligible small businesses and private nonprofit (PNP)
organizations in California of the Nov. 25, 2025 deadline to
apply for low interest federal disaster loans to offset
economic losses caused by drought beginning Oct. 1, 2024. The
disaster declaration covers the California counties of Alpine,
Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, Madera, Mono,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo,
Santa Barbara, Tulare, Tuolumne and Ventura as well as the
Arizona counties of La Paz, Mohave and Yuma, and the Nevada
counties of Clark, Douglas, Esmeralda, Lyon, Mineral and Nye.
San Diego County has launched a formal search for the next
operator who will manage the Tijuana River Community Garden.
… Growers received a 60-day notice to vacate from the
Resource Conservation District of Greater San Diego County in
early October. The district has rented the land from the county
and managed it since 2002. … In late September, district
officials told gardeners that they would no longer renew their
lease with the county, blaming the ongoing Tijuana River sewage
crisis.
A powerful storm is expected to bring several days of heavy
rain, strong winds and mountain snow to parts of the Western
United States this week. The storm is the result of an
atmospheric river. … The atmospheric river season
typically runs from October through March, and is responsible
for up to half of California’s annual precipitation. While
these systems are vital to replenishing water supplies, they
can also cause flooding when they combine with other weather
systems, bringing heavy rainfall. … Heavy mountain snow
was expected across parts of mountain ranges like the
Cascades, the Northern Sierra Nevada and the Northern
Rockies.
After a lengthy public comment session that included dozens of
speakers both for and against a resolution that many argued
would jeopardize years of painstaking progress made toward
continuing water diversions from the Eel River into the Russian
River following the removal of the Potter Valley Project dams,
the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors instead voted to
consider an alternative resolution proposed by Fifth District
Supervisor Ted Williams at its next meeting. … [H]e was
concerned about the “unanticipated consequences” of passing the
resolution … that asks the Pacific Gas and Electric Company
to reconsider its decision to decommission the hydroelectric
plant known as the Potter Valley Project.
A storm wiped out millions of dollars’ worth of experimental
Tijuana River treatment technology paid for by a cash-strapped
federal agency just months after setting it up. Others working
to manage trash on a separate project where the river crosses
from Mexico into the United States said they warned the tech
company, Greenwater Services, of the poor location of their
equipment next to the flood-prone river. But last week’s
intense rainstorm swept away their equipment trailers and
overturned at least one diesel generator, spilling an estimated
1,000 gallons of fuel into the river.
Another Kings County groundwater agency has issued a draft
policy on one of its thorniest issues – pumping allotments. The
South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
approved a draft pumping allocation policy at its Oct. 16
meeting, which opens a 45-day comment period. The neighboring
Mid-Kings River GSA issued its draft policy Oct. 14.
… Both policies allow farmers to pump one amount that’s
considered “sustainable” yield, or the amount that can be
extracted without causing negative impacts.
