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.
[Thursday], the Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced
an increase to the State Water Project (SWP) allocation for
2026. The allocation is now 30 percent of requested supplies,
up from the initial allocation of 10 percent on December 1.
Storms in mid-December have made it possible for the SWP to
increase the expected amount of water deliveries this year to
the 29 public water agencies served by the SWP. … In
December, all of California benefited from winter storms.
However, January has been unseasonably dry and warm and, as a
result, snowpack and precipitation are below average for this
time of year.
Governors in the Colorado River basin and their negotiators are
meeting with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in Washington on
Friday. … On the eve of the high-stakes summit, negotiators
from both the upper and lower river basins are not sounding
confident they can reach an agreement before a fast-approaching
Feb. 14 deadline. … “Some in the lower basin wanted some sort
of guaranteed supply, irrespective of hydrologic conditions,”
[Colorado negotiator Becky] Mitchell said. “And I think asking
people to guarantee something that cannot be guaranteed is a
recipe that cannot get to success.” … California’s water
negotiator, J.B. Hamby, was talking to roughly 600 people on a
webinar about his take on the state of negotiations. … He
largely focused on his desire to still find a compromise among
the seven states in the river basin.
… By Jan. 6, with umbrellas and snow shovels getting a
workout, the statewide Sierra Nevada snowpack was a respectable
93% of its historical average. But in the three weeks since,
the switch has flipped. Sunny and warm weather has been the
norm throughout most of California. On Thursday, the Sierra
snowpack had fallen to just 59% of its historical average. …
But it’s not as bad as it seems, experts said Thursday.
… Between mid-December and early January, the state’s
largest reservoir, Shasta — a massive 35-mile-long lake near
Redding — rose by 36 feet. The second-largest, Oroville in
Butte County, rose 69 feet over the same three weeks. They have
even more water in them now, and are still rising.
A judge has ordered the Southern Nevada Water Authority to halt
its grass removal efforts across Las Vegas Valley residential
communities and homeowners associations pending a hearing next
week. It’s the latest development in a lawsuit against the
agency for its enforcement of a 2021 state
law intended to remove decorative grass in the name of
preserving the Colorado River. The definition
of “nonfunctional turf” was established by a committee, and
three plaintiffs allege that the ban has killed trees in three
neighborhoods in Las Vegas and Henderson. … Albertson
has scheduled a Wednesday hearing on whether to extend her
temporary restraining order.
Putah Creek, the 85-mile long stream that forms the border
between Solano and Yolo counties, just had a record breaking
year for salmon. 2,100 Chinook returned to the waters of
Putah Creek to spawn in 2025. A decade ago scientists estimated
about 1,700 salmon returned to the stream. That may sound
like a modest increase but compared to three decades ago when
salmon were extinct in the waterway, this represents a complete
turnaround for the once struggling Putah Creek. … Robert
Lusardi is a UC Davis assistant professor and Max Stevenson is
the Putah Creek Streamkeeper. They both joined Vicki Gonzalez
on Insight to talk about the creek and its record breaking
salmon run.
On Jan. 9, 2026, the Central Nevada Water Authority board held
a meeting to discuss claims of vested water rights. Jeff
Fontaine, staff representative for Central Nevada Regional
Water Authority, presented new state law requirements for
formally claiming vested water rights. According
to Fontaine, vested water rights are “rights for water
that were put to beneficial use or were used prior to the
enactment of water laws in the state of Nevada.” In Nevada,
laws were enacted in 1905 for springs and streams, in 1913 for
artesian wells, and in 1939 for all groundwater. A change
in state law now requires these vested water rights to be
formally claimed, rather than relying solely on historic or
assumed use. If a claim is not filed, the right can be
challenged, lose priority, or potentially be lost
altogether.
The federal Large-Scale Water Recycling Project Grant Program
would be extended through 2032 under a bipartisan bill proposed
by U.S. Sen. John Curtis (R-UT). The senator on Jan. 27 signed
on as the lead original cosponsor of the Large-Scale Water
Recycling Reauthorization Act, S. 3693, which is sponsored by
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). “For the millions that
rely upon the Colorado River Basin, water scarcity is a daily
reality,” Sen. Curtis said. “Large-scale water recycling is one
of the most effective, forward-looking tools we have to stretch
limited supplies, support growing communities, and protect our
environment.
On Tuesday, February 3, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors
will host a workshop to discuss how to address the significant
threat to our local environment and economy posed by the Golden
Mussel. … Without active efforts to educate the
visiting public about this threat and a mandatory inspection
and decontamination requirement for boats, it is highly likely
that the Golden Mussel will be introduced into the Eastern
Sierra watersheds. … Given the looming threat, Inyo
County staff engaged with Mono County, CDFW, the Town of
Mammoth Lakes, the Inyo County Fish and Wildlife Commission,
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Southern
California Edison, the City of Bishop, and the Inyo County
Sheriff and District Attorney, to consider how the numerous
parties can work collaboratively to help prevent the
introduction of the Golden Mussel to regional waterways.
The Trump administration is taking an unprecedented step to
control post-disaster rebuilding efforts by preempting local
regulations that it says have delayed projects that are funded
with federal loans. The move applies to thousands of homes and
businesses that are rebuilt each year with low-interest
disaster loans from the Small Business Administration. It took
effect Thursday under an 18-page rule the SBA issued with no
public input. … One target of the rule could be the
California Environmental Quality Act, which requires state
agencies to review the environmental effects of their actions.
… “I’m sure a target of this is the California Environmental
Quality Act,” said [Chad] Berginnis of the floodplain
association [Association of State Floodplain Managers].
Wells are going dry and the ground is sinking in the towns of
Wenden and Salome in eastern La Paz County. Residents fear a
proposed water transfer from their basin to Central Arizona
cities will force them to chase water deeper, which they cannot
afford. But the New York-based hedge fund attempting the
transfer argues this would save more water than their current
land use: growing alfalfa. … Now Rep. Gail Griffin,
R-Hereford, has proposed legislation that would make water
transfers from McMullen Valley a reality. Existing law wouldn’t
allow Water Asset Management, a firm that owns nearly 13,000
acres of alfalfa fields north of Wenden, to act as an
intermediary for the transfers. By amending the law with
Griffin’s bill, the transfer could go forward.
The schism between Democratic environmental ideals and
California voters’ anxiety about affordability, notably gas
prices, were on full display during an environmental policy
forum among some of the state’s top Democratic candidates for
governor on Wednesday. … In another controversial issue
facing the state, most of the Democratic candidates on
Wednesday distanced themselves from the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta tunnel, a massive and
controversial proposal to move water to Southern California and
the Central Valley. … Despite Newsom’s efforts to
fast-track the project, it has been stalled by environmental
reviews and lawsuits. It hit another legal hurdle this month
when a state appeals court rejected the state’s plan to finance
the 45-mile tunnel.
… U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum
said in a statement that the Trump administration is merely
restoring the ESA to its “original intent” and ending “years of
legal confusion and regulatory overreach.” Of the five new ESA
rules so far, four are essentially repeats from the first Trump
administration that were in effect for a few months before the
Biden administration mostly did away with them.
… Karrigan Börk, a professor of law and director of the
Center for Watershed Sciences at U.C. Davis, calls the new
rules a “wholesale attack” on the ESA, compounded by the
administration’s attempts to weaken other bedrock environmental
laws, such as the Clean Water Act and Migratory Bird Treaty
Act.
Some Nevada residents in the Lake Tahoe Basin say they’re
growing increasingly frustrated with how the Tahoe Regional
Planning Agency (TRPA) makes decisions — concerns that surfaced
publicly last week during a legislative oversight meeting in
Carson City. Nevada lawmakers recently began a new round of
oversight hearings focused on TRPA and the Marlette Lake Water
System. The Nevada Legislative Committee for the Review and
Oversight of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the
Marlette Lake Water System met last Friday. … Residents
raised concerns about growing development in the basin,
declining water clarity, overcrowded parking, and risks related
to wildfire and emergency evacuations.
As Wyoming plans to spend $250 million on two new dams,
primarily for agricultural use, the state’s water office warned
lawmakers that it will also cost hundreds of millions of
dollars to restore existing irrigation canals and
infrastructure. Jason Mead, director of the Wyoming Water
Development Office, outlined the state’s challenges in remarks
Jan. 7 to the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee.
… The proposed West Fork or “Battle Lake” dam on Battle
Creek [in the Colorado River Basin] above Baggs is expected to
cost $150 million. An additional $100 million is estimated for
the Alkali Creek reservoir proposed near Hyattville.
The question of how to protect fish and the ecological health
of rivers that feed California’s largest estuary is generating
heated debate in a series of hearings in Sacramento. … The
plan is being discussed in three days of hearings convened by
the State Water Resources Control Board. It sets out rules for
water quality that will determine how much water can be pumped
out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. … The
approach backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom would give water agencies
more leeway in how they comply with water rules. Environmental
advocates said the proposal would take too much water out of
the Delta and threaten fish already in severe decline.
Federal water managers are reopening endangered species and
water-sharing rules in the Klamath Basin as salmon return to
newly free-flowing stretches of the river and as the Trump
administration pushes agencies to maximize water
deliveries. The Bureau of Reclamation formally asked
federal fisheries agencies last week to help rewrite the
endangered species rules that govern its dams and pumps that
deliver water from the Klamath River on the California-Oregon
border. … Alan Heck, the bureau’s Klamath Basin manager, told
the conference attendees [Wednesday] that he expected the new
guidelines to represent a “fairly large shift in the way we do
business” following President Donald Trump’s executive order to
maximize water supply last year.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and the state’s top negotiator are
heading to Washington, D.C., this week to battle with other
states over how the Colorado River will be managed for years to
come. A 19-year-old federal and state agreement for how to
manage the basin’s largest reservoirs, lakes Mead and Powell,
will expire this fall. … Mitchell said mandatory
conservation for Colorado is a no-go. The state’s constitution
preserves the right for Coloradans to put available water to
beneficial use. Mandatory conservation would go against that,
the state’s lawyers argue.
The fight to remove the golden mussel continues in California.
The invasive species is damaging boats, clogging pipes, and
threatening water systems across the state, according to the
San Joaquin Farm Bureau. … Here at home, they have been
detected in the San Luis Reservoir and the Friant-Kern Canal.
These invasive species are causing frustration and costly
concerns throughout the state. … A reservoir in the East
Bay remains closed to boats because of the golden mussel
spread, and experts say more could close as they try to come up
with a solution.
Twenty water professionals from across California have
been chosen for the 2026 cohort of the William R. Gianelli
Water Leaders, a highly competitive and respected leadership
program. … The 2026 cohort will
explore ways to find 9 million acre-feet of
additional water through conservation, storage and other
means by 2040. This goal was part of Senate Bill 72, which
was signed into law last October by Gov. Newsom. The bill
requires the California Department of Water Resources to
quantify water-supply gaps and identify 9 million acre-feet of
additional water supply by 2040 to offset losses anticipated as
the climate continues to warm.
Last weekend’s winter storm may have covered much of the
country in a glut of snow and ice, but the season has not
delivered out West, where several states face a snowpack
drought. … Given those conditions, scientists are
growing concerned about the water supply and a risk of
wildfires later in the year. Because the mountain snowpack in
Western states runs off as water throughout spring and summer,
the levels influence how much water farmers can use to irrigate
crops, how risky the wildfire season will be, and how much
electricity hydropower dams can generate.
