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.
Drying soils in northern Mexico can trigger simultaneous
drought and heat wave episodes in the southwestern United
States, including Arizona and states like Texas and New Mexico,
according to a new study involving an Arizona State
University professor. Co-authored by Enrique Vivoni, a senior
global futures scientist with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global
Futures Laboratory, the research underscores the increasing
persistence of “hot droughts,” which extend across consecutive
days and nights, hindering recovery and posing significant
risks to the region. A hot drought is described as droughts
intensified by extreme temperatures that amplify evaporation,
plant stress and the loss of moisture in the soil.
It seems like just about everyone has a plan for the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. … Now, an effort called Just
Transitions in the Delta aims to make planning for the region
more equitable by inviting everyone to have a voice. Launched
in 2023, the four-year project hosts participatory workshops
for natural resource researchers and managers; environmental,
boating and fishing interests; and underrepresented groups and
communities. The Just Transitions in the Delta team will
present their work and hold a participatory planning session
and an interactive exhibition at the State of the San Francisco
Estuary Conference in late October.
A group of recreation advocates are hoping Colorado lawmakers
will settle the state’s legal gray area surrounding public
river access. The Colorado Stream Access Coalition is fighting
for the public’s right to use the state’s waterways for
recreation, a right they say is guaranteed in the Colorado
Constitution. … Members of the coalition, including
Kestrel Kunz, southern Rockies protection director at American
Whitewater, testified at the Water Resources Committee in
August, asking legislators to guarantee public access to rivers
for all Coloradans, while respecting landowners’ property
rights.
California water regulators formally unveiled a revamped online
depository for water rights records Tuesday as they try to get
a better handle on how water is divided up and used in the
state. The State Water Resources Control Board showcased a new
online portal at its Tuesday meeting that aims to be a one-stop
shop for individual water rights holders in the state to report
their annual use and for regulators — and the public — to see
who has a right to how much water and where. The portal
includes digitized copies of documents that are sometimes over
a century old and were previously only accessible in an
in-person vault.
The Utah Supreme Court ruled on a controversial pipeline
project in Eastern Utah last Friday. In January 2018, Water
Horse Resources, LLC proposed a pipeline project that would
send 55,000 acre-feet of water every year from the Green River
to the state of Colorado. However, on Nov. 7, 2020, the Utah
State Engineer rejected the application. The proposal
sought to pipe water to be used for “beneficial use in
Colorado.” However, a district court found Water Horse failed
to establish evidence that the water can be put to beneficial
use in Colorado. … Water Horse appealed the district
court’s decision, leading to a years-long legal battle. On
Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, the Utah Supreme Court reaffirmed the
initial decision of the state engineer to reject the project.
… This week, after years of advocacy and
experimentation, officials at Lake Mendocino will celebrate the
reservoir’s status as the first reservoir in the nation to get
the go-ahead to adopt a flexible, forecast-based operations
policy. The lake’s new water control manual, reliant on
modern-day weather models, and notably an understanding of
atmospheric rivers, gives dam managers the ability to stash
additional water, which could boost reserves sometimes 20% or
more when the conditions are right.
Wildfires can negatively impact water quality,
even after they’re extinguished. And new research shows those
negative impacts can last for up to eight years. Carli Brucker
led the study of 100,000 samples from 500 watersheds across the
western U.S. Their findings: Contaminants like nitrogen,
phosphorus and carbon were in that water and, in some cases,
stayed in it for years. … She says there’ve been a
number of studies looking at the post-wildfire impacts on water
quality but that this is one of the first showing those impacts
can last as long as eight years after a fire.
The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District voted Monday
to ask the State Water Resources Control Board to relax parts
of a long-standing cease-and-desist order that restricts how
much water can be drawn from the Carmel River. The order dates
to 2009, when state regulators found California American Water
(Cal-Am) was over-pumping the river, triggering strict caps
that have shaped development and conservation on the Peninsula
for years. … General Manager David Stoldt told the board
that, thanks to aggressive conservation and new supply from
projects like Pure Water Monterey, the Peninsula currently has
enough water to meet existing demand.
It will soon be legal to hunt and kill mute swans anywhere in
California, after Governor Gavin Newsom signed state
legislation into law earlier this month. … Mute
swans are territorial and extremely aggressive, and do not mix
well with other waterfowl species native to the area. They do
not generally migrate and prefer to feed on primarily submerged
aquatic vegetation in wetlands, which are
limited across California, and are essential for many
wetland-dependent birds, native to the state. … Mute
swans were first found in the Suisun and Napa
marshes during the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife’s annual Waterfowl Breeding Population Survey in
2007.
A wide-ranging letter from J.G. Boswell Company Vice President
Jeof Wyrick accuses SJV Water of misrepresenting the farming
giant’s plan to deal with subsidence. … Wyrick is also the
chair of the El Rico Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA).
… El Rico doesn’t plan to sink Corcoran by another 10 feet,
according to Wyrick’s Aug. 12 letter. Just six feet. It
may be relevant to note that El Rico’s plan would possibly
lower the Corcoran levee, which protects the town and two state
prisons, to a height of 186 feet.
The Trump administration is seeking to lay off nearly 200
Coloradans who work for the Department of the Interior managing
public lands and conducting ecological research. The planned
cuts were outlined in a filing made public Monday in an ongoing
federal court case stemming from a lawsuit by two labor unions
seeking to halt the layoffs. In total, the department plans to
eliminate more than 2,000 jobs across the Bureau of Land
Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of
Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological
Survey and the department’s administrative offices.
Although the Bay Area won’t be directly hit by an atmospheric
river this weekend, we will still be impacted by some rain.
According to ABC7 News Meteorologist Sandhya Patel, spotty
showers will move in late Wednesday night with a chance of an
isolated thunderstorm. … As for those to the North, the
National Weather Service says there’s a more than 60% chance of
heavy rain and snow near the California-Oregon border later
this week.
Governor Newsom signed in law California Senate Bill 598 (SB
598) on October 11, 2025, and will go into effect January 1,
2026. SB 598 will implement processes to streamline local
agency water infrastructure projects. It will allow certain
local agencies to use the Construction Manager/General
Contractor (CM/GC) project delivery method for projects aimed
at addressing ongoing drought or climate change-related water
shortages. Currently, California Public Contract Code
section 21568.1 authorizes the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California to use the CM/GC project delivery method
for regional recycled water projects or other water
infrastructure projects under specified conditions.
Demolition of the former Motel 6 is complete, announced the
California Tahoe Conservancy, making way for future
environmental restoration and public access improvements.
… The Upper Truckee Marsh South
property was one of the most consequential environmental
acquisitions in years for the Lake Tahoe Basin. The Conservancy
joined with partners to acquire the property in 2024, providing
the opportunity to remove development from four acres of
ecologically valuable floodplain along the
Upper Truckee River and protect 25 acres of existing wetlands.
The city council approved a $529,337 contract with Sentry
Equipment Corp. for the rehabilitation of a key component at
the city’s wastewater treatment plant on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The
project will focus on upgrading and repairing the plant’s
secondary clarifier, which plays a critical role in the
treatment process by removing or recirculating solids from the
wastewater stream. The clarifiers, originally constructed in
1972 to meet federal Clean Water Act standards, currently
process between 1 to 1.5 million gallons of wastewater per
day.
Dust from California’s drying Salton Sea
doesn’t just smell bad. Scientists from UC Riverside found that
breathing the dust can quickly re-shape the microscopic world
inside the lungs. … Published in the journal mSphere,
the study shows that inhalation of airborne dust collected
close to the shallow, landlocked lake alters both the microbial
landscape and immune responses in mice that were otherwise
healthy. “Even Salton Sea dust filtered to remove live
bacteria or fungi is altering what microbes survive in the
lungs,” said Mia Maltz, UCR mycologist and lead study author.
The salmon season is drawing to a rapid close, but the fish are
in, and things should only get better! Salmon action on all
three rivers, the Feather, American and now the Mokelumne is in
full swing. Despite the full closure of the Sacramento River,
and the current low flows on the Feather, anglers are now
enjoying some of the best action of the season. … On an
interesting note, the San Joaquin River Restoration Program set
a record this year with 448 adult spring-run Chinook returning
to the system. This is the highest number of captured returns
since action began in 2014 and is a testament to the potential
success of well-managed restoration programs.
For years, San Diegans near our southern beaches have learned
to treat the Pacific with suspicion. On a day when the water
looks inviting, invisible pathogens may be drifting north from
Tijuana, where a water treatment plant struggles to contain its
outflow. … But oceanographers at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography have devised a way to tip the odds. The new
Pathogen Forecast Model translates the complexity of oceanic
physics (currents, winds, tides, waves) into something as
simple as a weather report. … The new model can project, up
to five days in advance, where contaminated water is likely to
travel and how risky it might be to take a swim at various San
Diego beaches.
The accurate detection of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFAS), often termed “forever chemicals,” presents a critical
and complex challenge for environmental science due to their
structural diversity, the lack of standardized methods, and the
need for highly sensitive equipment to measure trace
environmental levels. A study published in Environmental
Science and Technology reveals an innovative, deep
learning-based approach to overcome these obstacles. The
prevalence of background contamination and the sheer number of
distinct PFAS compounds further complicate the development of
universal detection protocols.
A controversial proposal to build a 14-mile underground tunnel
to transport water from Northern California southward got a
boost from the state Court of Appeals, which ruled that
preliminary work can begin on the project. Last year, a judge
in Sacramento County agreed with a collection of counties,
water districts, environmental groups and native tribes seeking
to stop the Delta Conveyance Project. The
judge found that preconstruction geotechnical work had to be
certified by a state agency before it could begin, and issued a
preliminary injunction preventing that work from moving
forward. But on Friday, a three-judge panel from the state
appellate court reversed that ruling.
