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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Not even a Super El Nino — which climatologists say is likely
to develop this summer — could undo the damage in Colorado
after a historically low snowpack. It may, however, offer a
glimmer of hope that relief is on its way. “Overall,
between the very low snowpack and the warm, dry winter and
start to spring …. we are in drought conditions across
basically the entire state, and they, at this time, are
worsening,” said Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist
at the Colorado Climate Center, said at the monthly Colorado
Water Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting on Tuesday, April
21. “But this is probably the most optimistic seasonal outlook
that I’ve been able to give on one of these calls in quite some
time.”
The Klamath Tribes plan to implement the first-ever large-scale
reintroduction of Chinook salmon. The Bureau of Indian Affairs
and NOAA Fisheries recently allocated $6 million in efforts do
the reintroduction on what the Tribes say are “critically
imperiled spring-run Chinook salmon within the Klamath Tribes’
ancestral territory.” The Tribes plan to establish up to 40
remote incubation sites in cold-water streams above Upper
Klamath Lake. The money will also support the installation of
four additional raceways and “increase water efficiency” at the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Klamath Fish Hatchery
near Chiloquin.
… [I]t sounded like a waterfall suddenly roared to life as
Northern Water started filling Colorado’s newest reservoir,
Chimney Hollow. … Engineers will make sure the pipes
that will funnel Colorado River water to the reservoir are
functioning correctly. It will also give Northern Water a
chance to study an issue with the water supply. The reservoir’s
future became murky last year after officials announced that
naturally occurring uranium was found in the rock used to build
the dam for the reservoir. … This week’s initial fill
will provide Northern Water with a real-world test of the water
quality that was only previously done in laboratories. None of
the water coming into the reservoir will be released to taps at
this point.
The Los Angeles reservoir that was notoriously empty during the
2025 Palisades fire has been drained once again as crews
replace its floating cover, to the dismay of area residents who
worry that there won’t be water available to fight wildfires.
The Santa Ynez Reservoir stores drinking water for Pacific
Palisades, and the $19.5-million project to replace its damaged
cover is needed to ensure the water is safe to drink, according
to the Department of Water and Power. But with warm weather and
wildfire season ahead, community leaders would prefer to see a
full reservoir even if the water isn’t suitable for drinking.
A proposed restoration project could bring new life to parts of
the Lower Kern River. A presentation to the Bakersfield Water
Board outlined plans to restore more than 670 acres along the
Kern River Parkway. The project aims to create new habitat,
improve wildlife corridors, and add shade and recreational
opportunities for the community. The first phase of the
project would cover about 137 acres south of the Kern River
near Truxtun Lake. The total project cost is estimated at $4.3
million. Most of the funding is expected to come from state
grants. If approved, site preparation and planting could
begin as soon as the fall of 2027, with full completion
expected in 2032.
In 2029, a new law will ban watering of “nonfunctional turf”
with potable water. … In 2023, the Legislature passed
Assembly Bill 1572 and created Water Code Section 10608.14,
applicable to properties including common interest
developments. This new statute requires various property
owners, including HOAs, to either remove nonfunctional turf or
begin irrigating it with reclaimed water. HOAs must comply
before 2029. Since most HOAs do not have reclaimed water
readily available to them without great expense, many HOAs are
erroneously assuming they must remove grass areas not regularly
used by residents. However, a careful review of the statutes
and connected regulations reveals that probably very few — if
any — California common interest developments will be affected
by this law.
A draft decision issued Monday on appeals to California’s Delta
Conveyance Project appears to hand the state a major win in its
battle to make the massive project a reality. However, while
discarding most of the appeals against the project, the
recommendation to the Delta Stewardship
Council calls for sending two issues about the project
back to the state Department of Water Resources for
reconsideration. It also wants yearly reports from the
department about its outreach efforts to tribes and various
agencies. … A formal vote on the decision by the council is
expected [Thursday]. …The project calls for two intake
facilities by the Sacramento River, near the town of Hood, that
could handle 6,000 cubic feet of water per second. A tunnel
some 45 miles in length would carry water south to the Bethany
Reservoir and ultimately to Southern California.
The nation’s second-largest reservoir will get a boost to keep
water levels from dropping too low, but the fix won’t last
long. Water levels in Lake Powell, which sits in southern Utah
and northern Arizona, are on course for historic lows after a
record-setting dry winter and a 26-year drought fueled by
climate change. The federal government announced a strategy to
prop up the reservoir and avoid infrastructure problems
at Glen Canyon Dam, which holds it back in Page,
Arizona. The Bureau of Reclamation will take water from Flaming
Gorge Reservoir in Utah and Wyoming and send it downstream to
Lake Powell. The agency, which manages major dams and
reservoirs across the Western U.S., will also ratchet back the
amount of water released from Lake Powell.
A looming storm is forecast to drop more than 2 feet of
snow in parts of the Sierra Nevada, prompting the
National Weather Service to issue winter storm warnings.
It’s the second round of winter storm warnings this month in
the Sierra, a rarity for April. … The heaviest snow is
expected Tuesday afternoon and evening above 5,000 feet in the
northern Sierra and above 7,000 feet in the southern Sierra.
… April storms are propping up a scarce Sierra
snowpack. California’s snowpack was just 18% of normal
as of Monday morning following the state’s warmest and driest
March on record.
… This year, New Mexicans are confronting record-low
snowpack, which is essential for supplying an even flow of
water into acequia systems. Record heat isn’t helping, as it
accelerates evaporation throughout New Mexico waterways and has
contributed to an early melt off of the already thin snowpack.
… New Mexico’s acequias date back to the late
16th century, when the Spanish colonized the region.
By 1700, what would become New Mexico had around 60 of these
community-managed irrigation ditches. Today, there are
more than 700 active acequias in the state, many of
them concentrated in Northern New Mexico.
At the Edmonston Pumping Plant in Kern County, giant pumps lift
water from an aqueduct near the Central Valley’s floor high up
over the Tehachapi Mountains — roughly 2,000 feet — through a
series of tunnels and tanks to the Southern California cities
below. It’s part of the State Water Project, a
sprawling state-run system of pumps, canals and reservoirs that
delivers water to 27 million Californians. It’s also the single
biggest electricity user in the state. The project’s massive
energy demand makes it an early testing ground for one
of California’s most aggressive climate targets: that
state agencies must run on 100 percent renewable and
zero-carbon electricity by 2035, a full decade ahead of the
state’s broader 2045 goal.
Two Arizona congressmen, one Democrat and one Republican, are
calling on the Trump administration to stop holding back
billions of dollars meant to fight the
historic drought choking the Colorado River. They warn the
money could disappear if it isn’t spent soon. Reps. Greg
Stanton and Andy Biggs, a Democrat and Republican respectively,
co-signed the letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and
budget chief Russell Vought on April 9, demanding the
government release unspent drought relief funds that
Congress set aside nearly four years ago. … The
problem, the lawmakers say, is that federal officials are using
the cash as leverage.
… As a biologist with Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources
[Kyle] Stone serves as the Project Leader for the Great Salt
Lake Ecosystem Program, which has been counting migratory birds
around the lake and its wetlands since 1997. “With these
low lake conditions, we’re seeing a lot of the birds that are
here are being artificially concentrated in the areas that are
left,” Stone said about the current spring migration. … As
other saline lakes decline, particularly in California, more of
the birds are being drawn to Great Salt Lake. “Used to be a lot
of those birds were going to the Salton Sea,”
Stone explained. “Now that the Salton Sea is mostly dry, that’s
no longer available to them.” Stone noted similar behaviors
happening with the decline of Mono Lake, just
east of Yosemite National Park.
You may recall a line of bravado from any number of action
movies, “That ain’t a threat, it’s a promise.” Sorry to say
this part out loud but, the invasive Limnoperna fortunei, also
known as the golden mussel, is no longer a hypothetical threat
– it’s here in the San Joaquin Valley. More importantly, these
mussels can clog pipes, damage pumps, and threaten the
reliability of California’s water delivery systems. First
detected in North America in 2024, golden mussels have rapidly
spread throughout California’s interconnected water system. …
According to the California Department of Fish & Wildlife
(CDF&W), golden mussels have been found from Martinez in
the East Bay to San Diego.
… In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in the
number of waterways polluted with cocaine, prompting scientists
to wonder how fish might be handling their highs. As it turns
out, fish indeed get wired when on cocaine. In a study
published Monday in the journal Current Biology, Dr. [Jack]
Brand and his colleagues show that coked-up salmon swim faster
and travel farther than their sober counterparts. This
study prompts additional questions about the effects
that human drug habits may be having on salmon and other
freshwater fish. … A 2016 study of
the salmon in the Puget Sound in Washington found Prozac,
Advil, Benadryl and Lipitor, as well as cocaine, in the tissues
of juvenile chinook salmon.
The Trump administration is still regulating federally
protected wetlands, despite recent remarks from a senior
official about the Army Corps of Engineers moving away from the
practice. Lee Forsgren, principal deputy assistant secretary of
the Army for Civil Works, said during a conference last month
that the administration was “getting out of the business of
regulating wetlands.” Reported by Bloomberg Law and other
outlets, the comment was later confirmed by the
agency. Yet Army Corps officials now say that the
statement was not meant as a total abdication of oversight over
wetlands. Rather, it reflects the agency’s limited authority
under the Clean Water Act, the top political appointee for the
Army Corps said in a brief interview last week.
On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series,
Indigenous rights and environmental advocate Amy Bowers
Cordalis discusses her new book, The Water Remembers: My
Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life.
Cordalis chronicles a multigenerational struggle to protect
Indigenous cultural heritage and the Klamath River from
environmental damage, which led to the largest river
restoration project in history. She writes: “The lessons
from Klamath dam removal are critical now because the
relationship between humans and nature is out of balance across
the planet. Klamath dam removal proves that humans can work
with nature to create a thriving future on planet earth.”
The County of San Luis Obispo held a community engagement
meeting Monday to share their plans for a desalination project.
The “Desalination Executable Solution and Logistics Plan” is a
five-phase flood control and water conservation project. The
county is currently conducting a feasibility study to determine
whether to move forward with the project and where it would be
located. … According to the County of San Luis Obispo,
the feasibility study is funded by a United States Bureau of
Reclamation (USBR) WaterSMART grant.
In August 2025, the Groundwater Demand Management
Network launched a “California Groundwater Community
Needs Assessment Survey” (Survey) to identify priority
needs for the diverse community that manages and researches
groundwater. As the Network grows into this new year, our
next step is to use the survey results to inform programming to
meet these needs, establish partnerships across the state,
and create a comprehensive community of practice to manage
California’s critical groundwater resources. Almost 100
colleagues responded to the Survey and provided exceptionally
helpful and robust input. A comprehensive Survey
Report will be available later in 2026; in the meantime, here’s
an initial summary.
Federal and state officials have proposed severe drought
response actions, like drastically cutting water releases from
Lake Powell, in face of a historically dry year and worsening
conditions in the Colorado River Basin. The Bureau of
Reclamation announced Friday it will likely reduce Lake Powell
water releases to 6 million acre-feet, the lowest amount in
decades. It also intends to release additional water from
Flaming Gorge, an upstream reservoir, to help elevate the water
level in Lake Powell. The decisions could
raise the specter of forced water cuts in states including
Colorado, impact endangered fish populations and affect
communities and economies.
