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 Environmental Protection Agency has issued a rule delaying
by five years deadlines for stricter wastewater treatment
standards for coal-fired power plants, a move that will allow
continued releases of toxic pollutants into waterways that
supply drinking water for more than 30 million Americans. The
delayed standards would have required coal plants to
significantly reduce discharges of wastewater containing
arsenic, mercury, bromide, and other hazardous pollutants.
Under the new rule, power plants will have additional time
before being required to install more advanced treatment
technologies.
The recent rainstorms are putting the Tijuana River Trash Boom
Project to the test, and so far, it’s proving its worth.
The trash boom was installed about a year and a half ago to
stop waste from spreading through the Tijuana River Valley and
into the Pacific Ocean. The barriers, stretching roughly
700 feet across the beginning of the Tijuana River Valley, are
designed to catch debris flowing from Tijuana before it reaches
the ocean. Oscar Romo, the director of the project, told
CBS 8 that during last year’s rain season, the system collected
about 500 tons of trash. Now, just two months into this
rain season, the boom has already trapped nearly that same
amount.
… Point Buckler Island, a 50-acre, boat-only island in Suisun
Bay, has been purchased by the John Muir Land Trust, which
plans to restore the island to its original tidal
marshland. The acquisition follows years of legal
disputes tied to unauthorized development that altered the
island’s natural flows. Located just east of the Carquinez
Strait in Solano County, Point Buckler sits at a critical
transition zone where saltwater from San Francisco Bay meets
freshwater from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
This brackish habitat plays an outsized role in supporting
migrating waterfowl along the Pacific Flyway and helps young
salmon and steelhead adjust as they move from river to ocean.
The Salton Sea Bird Festival will return on Saturday, Jan. 17,
2026, offering birdwatchers and outdoor enthusiasts a rare look
at one of the Pacific Flyway’s most critical stops during the
peak of winter migration. The daylong event, organized through
a partnership of state, federal, and nonprofit organizations,
features a diverse lineup of field trips and educational
activities designed to showcase the ecological significance of
California’s largest inland lake. Among the day’s highlights is
a guided public tour of the Species Conservation Habitat (SCH)
project. Hosted by the Salton Sea Management Program (SSMP),
the tour provides a behind-the-scenes look at the 9,500-acre
aquatic restoration site located at the southern end of the
sea.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today conducted the
first snow survey of the season at Phillips Station. The manual
survey recorded 24 inches of snow depth and a snow water
equivalent of 5 inches, which is 50 percent of average for this
location. The snow water equivalent measures the amount of
water contained in the snowpack and is a key component of DWR’s
water supply forecast. Statewide, the snowpack is
71 percent of average for this date. Today’s results are
welcome news for water managers who rely on the statewide snow
surveys to make water supply decisions for the year ahead.
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Heavy rain and flash flooding soaked roads in northern
California, leading to water rescues from vehicles and homes
and at least one confirmed death, authorities said Monday.
… The National Weather Service expects rain through the
Christmas week as a series of atmospheric rivers was forecast
to make its way through Northern California. A large swath of
the Sacramento Valley and surrounding areas were under
a flood watch through Friday. … Up to 6
feet of snow was predicted for parts of the Sierra
Nevada and winds could reach 55 mph in high
elevations by Wednesday.
California state water managers are likely to be able to
increase how much water they pump out of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta under a new set of environmental rules
approved Thursday, which align the state more closely with
federal water managers. The California Department of Fish and
Wildlife on Thursday largely approved the Department of Water
Resources’ request to loosen the operating rules of the State
Water Project. … The new rules give state water managers
greater leeway to pump more water out of the Delta,
particularly during the winter and spring, when young Delta
smelt can get caught up in and die at the pumps.
Until last week, Adam Sullivan was Nevada’s state engineer —
the person most responsible for managing water in the nation’s
driest state. That changed when state officials confirmed
Sullivan’s departure from the role — an unusual move, given
that the state engineer often serves under multiple governors
and must have expertise in Nevada’s oft-byzantine set of water
laws and regulations. So what happened? In his first
public comments since news of his departure broke, Sullivan
said he was terminated amid complaints about his decisions,
telling The Nevada Independent that there were a number of
disagreements between himself, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s
office and the director of his department that escalated over
the last six months.
San Diego arrived in Las Vegas this week ready to sell off some
of its excess water at negotiations over the dwindling Colorado
River between the states, tribes and farmers who use it. They
left without a deal in place. Dan Denham, the San Diego
County Water Authority’s general manager, has been hinting
there’s willing buyers of San Diego’s expensive desalinated
ocean water in the state of Arizona. Arizona is first in line
to have their Colorado River supply cut off during water
shortages. That very scenario is what the annual Las Vegas
negotiations were set up to prevent.
A controversial recent study highlights an old truth
about the American West’s snowpack: it’s difficult to
measure—and just as hard to forecast how much of its water will
ultimately reach tens of millions of people and vast swaths of
farmland. Water managers have increasingly turned to aircraft
that use lasers to gauge the snowpack across entire basins. But
the Aug. 15 scientific paper argues for a less expensive
strategy: focusing new monitoring efforts on a select number of
locations known as “hotspots” that excel at predicting how much
water will run off from the snowpack—a frozen reservoir that
can change dramatically over short distances.
The Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
have stepped in to address concerns involving the Potter Valley
Hydroelectric Project. According to Congressman Doug LaMalfa,
this intervention aims to protect vital water supplies critical
for agriculture and firefighting efforts across several
counties. In a press release published by … LaMalfa, he
praised USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Trump
Administration for demanding that the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission consider the real-world impacts before proceeding.
… On November 4, 2025, a group of 30 researchers, lawyers,
agency managers, and growers with subject-matter expertise met
in Davis to discuss the challenges and potential opportunities
for small farmers to participate in groundwater markets that
are currently developing under SGMA. … Among the issues
raised were identifying ways of addressing equity concerns,
preserving the vitality of small farmers, mitigating any
negative labor and employment effects of markets, and
preventing forms of market influence that could disadvantage
small farmers.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed a new leader to head the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division,
the agency responsible for managing the nation’s marine
fisheries and conserving protected ocean species. The Senate
approved Timothy Petty as the new Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, the top position overseeing
NOAA Fisheries, on Dec. 19, 2025. … Petty previously
served as a senior staffer for the U.S. House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water and
Environment, and as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science
at the Department of the Interior from 2018 to 2021.
The California Water Institute at Fresno State released a new
report showcasing how applied research, education and strategic
partnerships are supporting responses to California’s pressing
water challenges. Amid historic droughts, climate extremes and
growing pressure on groundwater supplies, the report
underscores how the institute’s work is helping communities as
they plan for long-term resilience. Its release comes as
federal lawmakers introduce new water infrastructure
legislation aimed at expanding storage capacity and improving
project delivery across California, highlighting the need for
research, data tools and collaborative planning to help local
agencies prepare for future water conditions.
… On a crisp morning in northwest Colorado, Joseph Leonhard,
The Nature Conservancy’s Riparian Restoration Project Manager,
wades into Yellow Creek—a tributary of the White River. With
deliberate care, he places sticks and mud in a pattern that
echoes the engineering genius of beavers, which once shaped
this landscape. … Over time, these simple, hand-built
structures begin to transform the ecosystem—nurturing native
plants, attracting wildlife, reducing wildfire risk and
bolstering resilience to drought. This is low-tech process
based restoration (LTPBR), and it’s reshaping the future of
fresh water in Colorado and beyond.
Opponents of a plan to remove two Pacific Gas & Electric-owned
dams from the Eel River in Lake and Mendocino counties have
officially won a huge ally: the Trump administration.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday filed a notice
to intervene in the utility giant’s bid to decommission its
waterworks in the rural area, which also include a century-old
power plant that helps to shunt Eel River water into irrigation
canals that support Mendocino County’s Potter Valley and dump
into the upper Russian River, boosting supplies for farms and
hundreds of thousands of urban dwellers in the North Bay.
A dangerous sequence of storms from the Pacific Ocean is
sweeping through Northern California and the Sierra Nevada
Mountains –– prompting heavy flooding and road closures across
parts of the region during the busy holiday travel season.
… Shasta County and other parts of Northern California
remain under a flood warning until midday
Monday, while much of Central California is under a flood watch
until Friday. … Northern California will see its
heaviest rainfall Monday and Tuesday – when up to 5 inches are
expected across the Northern Sierra and 3 inches along the
coastal regions, the NWS said Sunday. … Heavy snow is
also forecast over the Sierras, where an
additional 2 to 4 feet is expected – a stark contrast
from the snow drought the Sierras are currently experiencing.
… The single most important gathering of Colorado River
Basin officials came and went — with no significant
announcements regarding the often frustrating yet crucial
seven-state negotiations for how to divvy up the river over the
next 20 years. … Experts said at the three-day Colorado
River Water Users Association conference that if meaningful
conservation doesn’t happen in states both upstream and
downstream, leaders in the West could be headed for remarkably
hard decisions about the future. Governors and negotiators from
the seven states have an open invitation to the nation’s
capital, where Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has indicated he
would like to have a joint meeting. Nevada Gov. Joe
Lombardo asked Burgum this month to schedule it for
January.
As Californians break out umbrellas for a rainy holiday,
specialized crews are gearing up to fly their planes directly
into the winter’s incoming atmospheric rivers. … This winter,
leading climate institutions including UC San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography are ramping up a research program
that uses the planes to monitor atmospheric rivers —
the ribbons of water vapor in the sky that can drop up
to half of California’s annual precipitation. A goal
of the effort, announced Tuesday, is to improve forecasts from
the current one-week advanced storm warnings to more like two
weeks. … For California, improved forecasts not only
offer residents more time to plan for rain and snow, but the
warning can also make a big difference for reservoir
management in the state.
