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.
… State, federal and local agencies recently established a
workgroup to explore creating a dredging
program for the South Delta’s clogged channels.
[Farmer Mary] Hildebrand is part of a surprising new coalition
called the Great Valley Farm Water Partnership that aims to
nudge the South Delta dredging program along. The Great Valley
Farm Water Partnership brings together growers from the Delta
and the San Joaquin Valley, which have historically clashed
over water, to find common ground. The Partnership identified
seven joint problems, including modernizing levees in the Delta
and boosting water exports from the Delta during wet years, and
prioritized tackling the build up of South Delta sediment.
November temperatures were four degrees above average
region-wide and much of Utah and Wyoming baked under mean
temperatures that were six to ten degrees above average. High
temperatures coupled with mostly below normal precipitation
caused low snow water equivalent (SWE) and worsening drought
conditions. November precipitation was much below average for
much of the region, especially in Wyoming, northern Colorado
and northern Utah, which received less than half of normal
precipitation. Much above average November precipitation was
observed in southern Utah and eastern Colorado.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
… Changing weather patterns, droughts and competing water
demands have led to the rapid shrinking of the Salton
Sea and have left large areas of the lake bed
exposed. Dr. Emma Aronson is a professor of environmental
microbiology at the University of California, Riverside. For
years, her team has been collecting and studying dust from the
dried-up lake bed to find out how it is impacting residents’
lungs. “The Salton Sea region has been becoming
incredibly prone to dust storms, and daily dust exposure is
causing problems for people’s health,” said Aronson.
Recently, her team was able to determine that the Salton Sea
dust has an impact on our lung microbiome.
The contentious Central Coast Blue recycled water project is
set to move forward in a new form in Grover Beach — but the
city won’t have any control over whether it ultimately gets
approved. … Once completed, the project is intended to
take wastewater from the Pismo Beach Wastewater Treatment
facility, clean it, and inject that water back into the
Northern Cities Management Area of the Santa Maria Groundwater
Basin, which supplies the Five Cities with water. Despite
Grover Beach withdrawing from the project, officials said some
of the water treatment and then injection would still have to
happen from a new facility within the city’s limits — a move
that left some Grover Beach residents concerned.
A Shasta County man is being sued by the California Department
of Forestry and Fire Protection for illegally swiping water
from the Pit River and diverting it to a storage pond on his
property in Montgomery Creek, according to the complaint.
… In an interview with the Record Searchlight on
Tuesday, Dec. 9, Borgna said he had not been served with the
lawsuit, that he does possess water rights and that he didn’t
build the ditch. ”That tributary has been there for 115
years,” Borgna said of the body carrying water from the river
to the storage pond on his nearly 18-acre property, which he’s
owned since 2003.
A 20-year study conducted by the University of California,
Berkeley in the Sierra Nevada has provided new evidence
supporting prescribed burns as an effective way to manage
forests and reduce wildfire risk. The study, released in
November, suggests that CAL FIRE’s ongoing use of prescribed
burns has been beneficial, not only in lessening the risk of
wildfire but also in helping forests recover and grow stronger
over time. The findings are giving fire officials additional
motivation to continue the practice, which could also improve
insurance costs for homeowners in mountain communities.
The federal government on Monday denied listing the Western
Coast Chinook salmon as threatened or endangered under the
Endangered Species Act. The decision came after what the
National Marine Fisheries Service called a comprehensive review
of the Oregon Coast and Southern Oregon and Northern
California Coastal Chinook salmon. The agency examined
the issue after a petition called for listing them as
threatened or endangered and designating their habitat as
critical. … While inadequate regulations persist, they
pose a low risk to the Chinook salmon’s viability, the service
said.
More money is headed to farmers in the Colorado River
Basin, paying them to not grow as many crops and send
the water they save downstream. During a special meeting on
Monday, the Colorado River Authority of Utah’s board voted to
approve almost $895,000 in funds to some agriculture producers
under the “Demand Management Pilot Program.” It is estimated
the funds would save as much as 2,500-acre feet of water. This
is the second year of the program, which has spent nearly $5
million total. … Politically, the program can be seen as a
goodwill gesture by the state of Utah as negotiations continue
over the future of the Colorado River.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta is “looking at all
available options to respond,” his office said Monday in
response to the Bureau of Reclamation’s decision last week that
updates the Central Valley Project’s operating plan to permit
higher water exports from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.
… On Thursday, the Bureau of Reclamation approved Action
5, revising the long-term operating plan for the Central Valley
Project and allowing greater flexibility in Delta operations —
a step consistent with the Trump administration’s broader push
to increase federal water supplies.
When it comes to water resources, the northern Sierra Nevada
snowpack is a harbinger of abundance or scarcity for 40 million
California residents and businesses. The 2025-26 snow season
has arrived and is off to a very slow start. Northern
California, driver of the state’s water bounty is currently at
just 16 percent of average to date.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
Chuck Bonham, the director of the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife and a longtime driver of hotly debated state
policies on wolves, salmon and water, is leaving the state job
for a top post at the Nature Conservancy. … In a
state with nearly 40 million people, Bonham faced the
impossible task of balancing wildlife conservation with human
development, a responsibility that frequently won him critics.
For example, his largely fish-friendly policies, sometimes
forcing cuts to water supplies and promoting dam-removal
projects, drew criticism from agriculture and industry. At the
same time, environmental groups often wanted him to do more.
President Trump threatened on Monday to impose an additional 5
percent tariff on Mexican goods over a long-running water
dispute, reigniting diplomatic tensions that had flared earlier
this year over water shortages in the borderlands. In a social
media post, Mr. Trump accused Mexico of failing to provide more
than 800,000 acre-feet of water — or more than 260 billion
gallons — under a 1944 treaty mediating the distribution of
water from three rivers, the Rio Grande, the Colorado
and the Tijuana. The president said that Mexico needed
to “release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st,
and the rest must come soon after.”
States facing drought and dwindling groundwater
supplies are seeking to pull back the curtain on water
use at data centers, in a push for transparency that has
scrambled traditional partisan alliances. Lawmakers from at
least eight states this year introduced legislation to require
data centers to report their water use. … The proposal
in California … would have required data centers to report
estimated water use to their local supplier before applying for
a business license. Companies would have also needed to report
annual use when applying to renew their license. The bill
passed both of California’s Democratic-controlled chambers, but
Gov. Gavin Newsom did not sign it.
The heat of summer is in the rearview mirror as California
enters the wet part of the year. This also comes with an
increased risk of flooding, especially for places like
Sacramento which sits along the banks of the American
and Sacramento rivers. The region has seen significant
development and construction in low-lying areas and historic
floodplains, which are at greater risk when waters rise. The
city and county have an extensive network of flood control
infrastructure in place, from miles of levees to the Yolo
Bypass, and several projects are underway to help shore up
protection across the region. However, some of these projects
are running into setbacks and opposition.
The International Boundary and Water Commission has
acknowledged that its heavily criticized $2.5 million
“nano-bubble” project in the Tijuana River was destroyed and
swept away during a recent storm. On September 9, the IBWC
launched the controversial technology, hoping it would clean up
sewage and chemical contamination in the Tijuana River, where
daily readings of gases such as hydrogen sulfide are detected.
Critics, including several politicians, scientists and
environmental groups, have said the method has not been proven
effective or safe for humans. … The federal agency
claimed it and its contractor “are evaluating the data
collected and hope to share the results of the project soon.”
Drinking water contaminated with Pfas chemicals probably
increases the risk of infant mortality and other harm to
newborns, a new peer-reviewed study of 11,000 births in New
Hampshire finds. The first-of-its-kind University of Arizona
research found drinking well water down gradient from a
Pfas-contaminated site was tied to an increase in infant
mortality of 191%, pre-term birth of 20%, and low-weight birth
of 43%. … The study also weighed the cost of societal
harms in drinking contaminated water against up-front cleanup
costs, and found it to be much cheaper to address Pfas water
pollution.
A big thank you to everyone who attended the International
Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference, hosted by the
Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS)! The International
Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference took place October
6th–9th and featured 4 days of speakers hailing from across the
globe, many field trips, and an excellent evening of
water-themed trivia. This conference had nearly 300 attendees
from over 10 different countries across several different
disciplines, speaking on a range of topics such as floodplains,
rivers as classrooms, flow management, and more! By bringing so
many people together from across job sectors and fields of
river research, the conference fostered collaboration on both a
national and international level.
The Klamath Tribes filed a motion Nov. 19 in Klamath County
Circuit Court seeking to amend their petition to overturn what
they call illegal orders that removed the longtime
administrative law judge overseeing the Klamath Basin
Adjudication (KBA). Tribal leaders say the judge’s removal
followed a secret agreement between Oregon’s Office of
Administrative Hearings and Upper Klamath Basin water
users. In August, Chief Administrative Law Judge Jeffrey
Rhoades replaced Joe Allen, who had presided over the KBA for
years. The Tribes say the move ignored two prior rulings — in
November 2024 and March 2025 — that rejected challenges to
Allen by the Upper Basin Irrigators and affirmed he should
remain on the case.
US water and wastewater utilities navigated a year marked by
disruption and shifting federal policies. Stakeholders
navigated a maze of permitting reforms, evolving EPA guidance
on PFAS and new interpretations of the Clean Water Act after
Sackett v. EPA. For operators, the rulebook kept changing,
while costs and compliance risks continued to rise.
… With all that as backdrop, let’s look back on 2025.
We’ll dig into the shifting permitting and WRDA/IIJA landscape,
the ongoing tug-of-war over PFAS and WOTUS, Colorado River
uncertainty, the emerging water-AI connection and the growing
momentum behind collaborative delivery.
The Bureau of Reclamation on Thursday updated the long-term
operations plan for the Central Valley Project to allow
increased exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a move
that conflicts with California’s own requirements, potentially
shifts more of the water burden onto the state and threatens
the Delta’s ecosystem and water quality. … The
Reclamation Bureau stated that under the updated plan, the
federal-managed CVP could gain an additional 130,000 to 180,000
acre-feet of water a year — roughly 40 billion to 60 billion
gallons — while the State Water Project could see an increase
of 120,000 to 220,000 acre-feet, or about 39 billion to 70
billion gallons.
