A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation Writer Matt Jenkins.
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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.
Despite multi-million-dollar efforts to combat an invasive
species’ impact on a key California water source, Yolo County
was forced to declare a local emergency in its latest attempt
to slow the spread. The Yolo County Board of Supervisors
proclaimed a local emergency Tuesday as golden mussels continue
to threaten the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, officials
explained in a news release. This proclamation comes after
Sacramento County, San Joaquin County and the City of Stockton
also declared local emergencies. The county said a local
emergency status will allow for smoother coordination across
agencies and organizations.
Lake Natoma visitors looking for relief from the heat may want
to reconsider swimming in the water after recent samples
continue to show high levels of E. coli at the Black Miners Bar
Swim Area and Nimbus Flat North Beach. For the past five weeks,
E. coli levels at parts of Lake Natoma have exceeded the
threshold that the Environmental Protection Agency considers
safe in recreational waters. The latest samples show that Black
Miners Bar Swim Area is more than five times the limit, while
Nimbus Flat North Beach is more than three times the limit.
… A full investigation has not been conducted at Lake
Natoma to confirm the cause of the elevated E. coli levels, but
[California State Water Resources Control Board
spokesperson Blair] Robertson said birds could be behind the
increase.
The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) directed $30.7
billion specifically towards safe drinking water programs,
representing the single-largest investment into water
infrastructure in United States history. The law mandates that
49% of funds be provided as grants and forgivable loans to
“disadvantaged communities.” Notably, the definition of
disadvantaged communities has been left to the discretion of
states, allowing variability in how different states identify
and prioritize these communities. This study examines how
states redefined disadvantaged communities after the BIL, maps
their spatial distribution, and analyzes disparities in
drinking water funding from 2019 to 2023. Our results suggest
that, despite widespread updates to disadvantaged community
definitions, racial and ethnic minorities continue to encounter
barriers to accessing funding.
Workforce concerns have ranked in the American Water Works
Association (AWWA)’s top ten sector challenges for years. But
in 2026, the question has shifted from how to replace retiring
workers to something harder: how to stop institutional
knowledge from disappearing with them. When AWWA published its
2026 State of the Water Industry report in March, workforce
emerged once again as one of the most pressing concerns facing
utilities across the United States. With 21% of employees
eligible to retire within five years and vacancy rates
averaging 9%, the scale of the challenge is hard to ignore. We
sat down with AWWA CEO David LaFrance to dig deeper into what
the data is really telling us, and what the sector needs to do
to prepare.
California’s cities spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer
dollars each year to manage their clean water obligations, yet
violations persist with no clear end in sight. Stormwater
pollution is ubiquitous, and commercial, industrial, and
institutional properties are a significant and unaddressed part
of the problem, contributing between 35–60% of stormwater
pollutants. … Under two recent bills that stalled
out in Sacramento, commercial stormwater permit holders would
have had the option to meet their obligations by funding
regional stormwater projects — green infrastructure, stormwater
capture, wetland restoration — at the watershed scale. –Written by Sean Bothwell, executive director of
California Coastkeeper Alliance.
… Recently, a data center under construction in Cheyenne,
Wyoming, was found to have contaminated the sewer system with a
rare bacterium. The water utility took swift action. The
Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities fined the project developer,
revoked its wastewater permit and announced that it would not
accept certain types of wastewater from data centers
citywide. The developer of the project — which is backed
by Meta — is appealing the $10,000 fine and disputes the
utility’s conclusion tracing the bacterium to its project. But
the incident highlights what engineers view as an
emerging challenge for the data center industry that is already
under scrutiny over its environmental footprint.
Aurora Water’s single largest water customer is refusing to
reduce its usage, despite a mandatory 20% cutback ordered under
the city’s drought restrictions, according to the water
utility. The customer is Niagara Bottling, a California-based
company that has operated a bottling plant in Aurora since
2012. The plant draws directly from the city’s tap
water supply, purifies it and sells it, often under
store brand labels. Costco’s Kirkland Signature water, for
example, is often bottled by Niagara, which has plants across
the country. Aurora Water says last year, Niagara used
more than 200 million gallons of water. The
company is allocated 178 million gallons. … But Aurora
is currently under Stage 1 drought restrictions.
Sites Reservoir is still facing opposition from conservation
groups, but in most corners of Colusa County – where
mom-and-pop businesses are trying to survive long enough to
hold the community’s identity intact – the project’s
massive seven-year build-out is increasingly being viewed as a
badly needed stimulus opportunity. At least, for those who
think it will actually happen. Water contractors have
talked about building a project like Sites in Colusa for
decades. That means some longtime residents equate discussing a
financial windfall from it today as something like daydreaming.
But things change. Now, with strong support from California’s
Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom and the Mid-Valley’s Republican
Congressman James Gallagher, the managers at Sites Project
Authority say they could be breaking ground on the
reservoir as early as next summer.
The severe snow drought that gripped the western United States
in this past winter was made four times more likely by
human-caused climate change, according to a new study
led by researchers at Colorado School of Mines and published
today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS). In the Upper Colorado River Basin, a critical source of
water for millions of people across the southwestern U.S., the
study found that the snow drought was approximately 14 times
more likely because of climate change. The study is among the
first to apply modern climate attribution techniques to a
large-scale snow drought event, quantifying the extent to which
warming temperatures have increased the likelihood of
dramatically reduced snowpack across the American West.
… As what is now post-tropical cyclone Elida nears northern
California, the shield of moisture on its eastern flank is
dragged north across the entire state. … Thanks to the high
moisture content, any thunderstorms that do pop, especially on
Tuesday, will be capable of ample lightning, one-inch-per-hour
rainfall rates, and 50+ mph wind gusts. Storms will be
slow-moving out of the southeast, meaning the rain that does
arrive will come from a stacked weather system that will
increase flash flooding risks in localized spots.
The water level at Lake Mead is less than 10 feet away
from rendering most of the hydroelectric turbines at the Hoover
Dam inoperable. In a new projection from the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation, the water level is expected to fall
below 1,035 feet next April. That figure is critical. Currently
just shy of 1,042 feet, if Lake Mead falls below 1,035 feet — a
level not seen since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s —
it’s expected that 70% of the Hoover Dam’s current hydropower
production will be cut. The Bureau of Reclamation’s
24-month study released last week forecasts a continued decline
in Lake Mead’s water level. The study projects Lake Mead
falling to 1,031.6 feet in April 2027 and 1,010 feet by the end
of June 2028.
… Fishing for chinook salmon, also called king salmon, had
been called off completely for California’s commercial
fishermen since 2023 and nearly as long for recreational
anglers. While the fishery is open again this year, and the
federal government recently announced emergency funding for
those hit hardest by the closure, the consequences of multiple
canceled fishing seasons continues to have ripple effects that
are hard to fully account for. … Without plentiful
chinook salmon to support local fisheries, “people won’t always
spend the money for other species or for other recreational
activities,” [fisherman James] Stone said. “Salmon is what
drives the fishing industry.”
The Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District board voted at its July 8
meeting to spend more to hit invasive golden mussels hard in
October, rather than saving costs by reducing treatments.
… Cost for this option is $509,491. … At its July
14 meeting, the Arvin-Edison Water Storage District tabled a
decision to spend $1.3 million on a second phase of mussel
treatment while it explores other vendors that may offer a
higher insurance liability cap. SePRO Corporation, which did
Arvin-Edison’s first treatment in April for $2.5 million, wants
to set a liability cap of $10 million. Board members balked at
that saying if water treatments proved detrimental, crop losses
could be in the hundreds of millions. … The board opted
to have staff investigate the current status of golden mussel
growth in the district as well as SePRO competitors.
Hydrogen sulfide readings in the South Bay have exceeded the
county’s safety threshold with growing frequency in 2026,
signaling a worsening trend in the presence of the toxic gas
despite ongoing efforts to address the Tijuana River sewage and
pollution crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Hourly
readings at a hydrogen sulfide monitoring station in Nestor,
near Berry Elementary School, exceeded that threshold more than
10% of the time so far this year, up from under 2% in 2024,
according to monitoring data obtained from the San Diego County
Air Pollution Control District. … The trend comes as state
Sen. Steve Padilla, D-San Diego, pushes Senate Bill 58, which
would require the state Air Resources Board to develop a
response framework and evaluate the adequacy of hydrogen
sulfide standards first adopted in 1969 to address odor, not
health effects.
A Kings County groundwater agency nearly doubled its manager’s
salary and added two part-time assistants even as it scrambles
to find a secure revenue source. At its July 16 meeting, the
South Fork Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
approved a $354,996 contract with Green Acres Consulting to
continue managerial services by General Manager Johnny Gailey.
The GSA approved the contract despite the fact that it has yet
to nail down an ongoing, reliable source of revenue. One board
member, who voted against the contract, said the contract
nearly doubled the district’s administrative costs.
… Kings County farmer Garrett Gilcrease asked what the
GSA would do when it eventually ran out of cash. Cut funding to
its domestic well program, was the answer.
For decades, water utilities have relied on giant tanks filled
with ion-exchange resin beads to remove perchlorate, a harmful
industrial pollutant, from drinking water. … But the process
leaves behind a difficult problem: resin beads loaded with
perchlorate that must be regenerated or disposed of as
hazardous waste. Now, researchers at UC Riverside have
developed a catalyst made from tiny ruthenium nanoparticles
that effectively breaks down perchlorate at high
concentrations. The breakthrough study, published in the
journal “ACS Central Science,” could make it possible to
destroy perchlorate after it has been captured on ion-exchange
resin. … The advance comes as the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency moves toward establishing the first national
drinking water standard for perchlorate as California did
nearly two decades ago.
For more than a century, Western states have fought to keep the
federal government out of their business when it comes to
water. Now, the Trump administration is about to seize control
of the Colorado River, the region’s most important waterway.
But it’s not the narrative you might think. Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum — himself a former Western governor — has said
repeatedly that he preferred to have the states work out the
shrinking river’s problems. Far from a brash commandeering of
the system, the plan his department is set to finalize
as soon as Monday is effectively a kick-the-can
exercise for managing the drought-riddled river that supplies
water for 1 in 10 Americans. … The river plan, which is set
to be unveiled in the form of a final environmental impact
statement, is less of an actual plan than it is a framework for
future decisions, according to public statements by Interior
officials and the states. It is expected to cover a
10-year period in which the federal government would issue
short-term operating regimes every other year,
potentially with the sign-off of the states.
El Niño is back, and it might be bigger than ever. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared in June that
the threshold for an El Niño had been met in the eastern
Pacific Ocean, and that it was likely to strengthen
significantly through the end of the year. … For
the Central Valley and Sierra, the question is also not just
how much precipitation falls, but the form it takes. Thanks to
warmer ocean waters, El Niño storms tend to be warmer, allowing
them to physically hold more moisture. That pushes the
rain-snow line higher up the mountains, meaningthat
some precipitation that should be piling up as snowpack
instead runs off as rain. … A strong El Niño
could deliver even more precipitation this coming winter.
However, if the storms are warm, theSierra snowpack may fail to recover even in a wet
year.
When Denver Water looked back at the historically abysmal
snowpack, and ahead to a historically scorching summer, the
crucial agency for 1.5 million Coloradans set a target of 20%
water use cuts to help solve challenges from the ongoing
drought. It’s not working. At roughly the midpoint
of the high season for lawn watering, which accounts for about
half of Denver Water home use, customers have cut only
about 2% of the five-year system average. Officials
fear that after a weekend of 100-degree temps forecast for the
Front Range, they’ll see even worse results as customers reel
from a searing streak of daily highs and defend their lawns
with amped irrigation.
California’s Central Valley is one of the country’s richest
farming regions, blessed with fertile soils, sunny days and a
massive man-made system of irrigation canals and reservoirs.
But as climate change intensifies, droughts deepen, and water
restrictions kick in, growers in much of the valley are
getting less water for their fields.They also face new
limits on how much they can pump from underground, forcing them
to leave hundreds of thousands of acres dry in the coming
years. Some are turning to an answer they never thought
they’d embrace: solar. … Farmers’ desperation
coincides with California’s solar dreams. The state is legally
mandated to reach 100% clean electricity by 2045. That will
require an additional 10 gigawatts of clean energy a year and
between 0.5 and 1.3 million acres of in-state solar
development.
