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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Please Note:
Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.
We occasionally bold words in the text to ensure the water connection is clear.
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.
… Cave Creek, which gets about 95% of its water from the
Colorado River, will be among the first to feel the impact of
those cuts. … Colorado River water travels to Cave Creek
through the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile canal that
carries water from the state’s western border to the Phoenix
and Tucson areas. The federal government has suggested major
cuts to the amount of water the CAP carries each year, forcing
Cave Creek officials to find a backup plan quickly. They will
be able to keep taps flowing in the short term, but the future
is uncertain, as long-term fixes are expensive and complicated.
With the Colorado River poised for a dry future, Cave
Creek’s struggles could provide lessons for other
cities that might feel the pinch of shortages in the
future.
As California experiences its second-worst snow drought
in 50 years, new images show a stark comparison with
last year’s snow levels. This year, the Sierra snowpack peaked
on Feb. 25. It was only 73% of average, then rapidly dwindled
from there. Then, summerlike heat in March broke monthly
records in many areas of the Western United States. Daniel
Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural
Resources, described it as one of the most “extreme heat events
ever observed in the American Southwest.” Though a spring
storm dropped up to 3.5 feet of snow in California’s Sierra
Nevada mountains last week, extending ski season, snow levels
remain extremely low.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has released a new plan setting goals for
the city to combat climate change and adapt to a warmer future.
Bass’ Climate Action Plan calls for doubling local solar power
in Los Angeles by 2030 and reducing the use of fossil fuels in
buildings and city buses. It outlines how the city intends to
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the Port of Los Angeles
and L.A. International Airport. And it sets targets for
reducing water use, addressing risks from extreme
heat, and expanding parks and green spaces to cool
neighborhoods and restore natural habitat. … The mayor
spoke about the plan on Thursday at the Donald C. Tillman Water
Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, where construction is underway
on a new water recycling project.
Although the Ukiah Valley has received a lot less rain so far
this year than in 2025, new storage procedures at Lake
Mendocino have allowed a lot more of that water to remain in
the reservoir than ever before, regional water officials
reported this week. “Without (Forecast Informed Reservoir
Operations) and that ability to retain more water, the
reservoir would be below 68,000 acre-feet (instead of at 84,000
acre-feet),” said Donald Seymour, Deputy Chief Engineer for
Sonoma Water, speaking Wednesday during a virtual update on the
status of both Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma.
Communities across the US are struggling to cope with impending
federal requirements for eradicating two toxic PFAS chemicals
from their drinking water systems, utility leaders said at a
water policy conference this week. The US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) last year announced a proposal to delay
the deadline for utilities to comply with new regulation
limiting toxic types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS)
chemicals in drinking water supplies. But even with the
potential for a two-year cushion – compliance for meeting new
standards may be pushed from 2029 to 2031 – utilities are
faltering, industry experts said.
An extreme marine heat wave is simmering the Pacific Ocean off
the coast of California, and experts are warning that
it could affect coastal weather and ecosystems for
months. … El Niño could drive the ocean warmth even
higher in the months ahead. The latest federal outlook includes
a 61% chance that an El Niño will emerge between May and June
and persist through at least the end of the year, with a 1-in-4
chance of a particularly strong El Niño. The tropical Pacific
climate pattern is associated with warm, wet conditions in
Southern California. … There is less certainty around
the effect on wildfire season in California. Although more
storms and moisture could help quell blazes, there is also the
chance that a dry lightning storm could spark them, he said.
Kings County farmers will have to wait several more weeks to
find out if they owe millions of dollars in back fees.
The Kings County Superior Court set a hearing date for June 3
to consider a request from the Kings County Farm Bureau (KCFB)
to issue a preliminary injunction on the state collecting
groundwater pumping fees. … While Kings County farmers
await the June 3 hearing, groundwater users in the Tulare Lake
Subbasin are still required to submit their pumping reports to
the State Water Resources Control Board by May 1.
Zone 7 Water Agency, the Tri-Valley’s water manager and
wholesaler, is considering a large pipeline to exchange water
between the Chain of Lakes area and the South Bay Aqueduct to
prepare for the harsher water landscape expected in the coming
decades. Zone 7 staff, at a special April 1 Board of Directors
workshop, shared a proposal for a 7-mile-long, 42-inch-wide
pipeline that would run from Lake I and Cope Lake, located
south of Stoneridge Drive between the cities of Pleasanton and
Livermore, to the South Bay Aqueduct at the Del Valle Water
Treatment Plant in south Livermore. A new pump station at the
lakes would convey water uphill from the lakes to the aqueduct,
while gravity could carry water in the opposite
direction.
The Colorado River may have carved out the Grand Canyon after
pooling as a giant lake in what is now northern Arizona and
spilling downstream, a new study suggests. Scientists found
that tiny sediment grains in the Bidahochi Basin, upstream of
the canyon, were carried from the upper Colorado River
watershed by 6.6 million years ago. The findings fill in a 5
million-year gap about where the Colorado River was during this
early period, said John He, a geologist at UCLA and the first
author of the new study, published today (April 16) in the
journal Science. … The findings, in turn, suggest that a
giant ancient lake in the basin slowly filled and overflowed,
causing the Colorado River to flow through and carve out what
is now the Grand Canyon around 5.6 million years ago.
Fifty years ago, Colorado Parks and Wildlife took steps to
return the river otter to waterways across the state. Now, the
agency has dedicated the next 12 months to documenting how the
playful, water-loving mammals are doing — and it wants the
public’s help. On Monday, April 13, Parks and Wildlife launched
a program to track the success of its reintroduction efforts
five decades later. With what it’s calling the Otter YEAR,
short for yearlong engagement and assessment of river otters,
the wildlife agency will be documenting the places where the
mammals live and gauging their population size. … The
agency has planned efforts in the Yampa, Green, Colorado and
Gunnison rivers.
To prop up a declining Lake Powell, the federal
government plans to significantly cut Colorado River releases
from Powell to Lake Mead and to boost releases from
Upper Colorado River Basin reservoirs to Powell, Arizona’s top
water officials say. … The reductions now under
consideration wouldn’t be severe enough to force additional
cuts in water supplies for the Central Arizona Project canal
system beyond those the three Lower Basin states have agreed to
take starting in 2027, under proposals they’ve submitted to the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. But it would leave Lake Mead in a
much more vulnerable position to receive deeper cuts in the
future if 2027 brings another dry year on the river.
Oakley has become the first Bay Area city to temporarily
ban new data centers, signaling a more cautious approach
as other parts of Silicon Valley continue to line up
projects to meet rising demand for artificial
intelligence. The Oakley City Council voted
unanimously Tuesday to impose a 45-day moratorium on data
center projects, barring the city from accepting or processing
related land-use applications. … The decision follows
growing concern among residents in the eastern Contra Costa
city about the impacts of large-scale data centers,
particularly their heavy demand for electricity and
water.
… By all accounts, fire season across the West has arrived,
months earlier than normal, ushered along by record breaking
heat, drought and wind. The National Interagency Fire Center
says this year’s fire season will be significant, noting
regions of the Southwest and Great Basin have no snow
at all. Melt-off in those areas is up to four to six
weeks earlier than even the prior earliest melt-off dates.
While the shocking lack of snowpack at high elevations and
crispy grasses in lower elevations portend a potentially
apocalyptic wildfire season, some wildfire experts look at
those predictions with an asterisk. “The one thing that
can save us from a bad fire season is if we get precipitation,”
says Camille Stevens-Rumann, a Colorado State University fire
ecology associate professor.
Kearny, Arizona has implemented severe water restrictions after
the mayor said the city’s water allotment could run out
sometime this summer. An emergency water decree went out
in January, asking people to cut back on water usage, but the
usage went up. Now that severe restrictions are in place,
residents are starting to cut back a bit. But even then, Kearny
will likely use up its water allotment by July 15.
… Kearny gets its water from the nearby Gila River. Its
usual allotment is 600 acre-feet. But this year, based on lake
levels, the allotment was cut by more than 80%. The town is
already down to 60 acre feet left, according to Curtis Stacy,
the mayor.
Mark your calendars now for our upcoming fall 2026
programs! The Water Education Foundation’s
42ⁿᵈ
annual Water Summit will take place Oct. 29 in
downtown Sacramento. Foundation members, either
individual or organizational, receive a $100 discount on
registration for this event. November 5-6 is our
first-ever Kern
River Tour, which will be offered just once! Join
us on this special journey as we examine water issues along the
Kern River, from its mountain-fed headwaters in the southern
Sierra Nevada to its terminus in the Central Valley west of
Bakersfield. It will not be an annual tour, so don’t miss
this opportunity!
A Sebastopol environmental watchdog group has threatened to sue
Sonoma Water and the small sewer district it operates in
Guerneville over alleged water quality violations tied to a
massive, multi-day spill of wastewater during a heavy storm
this past January. A March 18 letter from local attorney Jack
Silver, representing the nonprofit California River Watch,
accuses the county water agency and Russian River Sanitation
District of violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The
notice of intent to sue comes three months after an
estimated 5.5 million gallons of wastewater, including
untreated sewage, overflowed from the district’s Guerneville
treatment plant into the lower Russian River over three days,
making for the largest such spill in the river in more than
four decades.
… Since 2018, more than 100 billion gallons (378 billion
liters) of raw sewage laden with industrial chemicals and trash
have poured into the Tijuana River, according to the
International Boundary and Water Commission. The river
traverses land where three generations of the Egger family once
raised dairy cows. The United States and Mexico signed
an agreement last year to clean up the longstanding problem by
upgrading wastewater plants to keep up with Tijuana’s
population growth and industrial waste from factories, many
owned by U.S. companies. In the meantime, tens of
thousands of people are being exposed to the sewage.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced
the availability of $30 million in grant funding to strengthen
water services in small and rural communities across the United
States. This newly available funding supports technical
assistance and training to benefit small drinking water
and wastewater systems and to help private well owners improve
drinking water quality. The funding forms part of the
agency’s Real Water Technical Assistance initiative
(RealWaterTA). The RealWaterTA program helps connect
small and rural drinking water and wastewater systems with
established services, including engineering and design
expertise, operational support, workforce development and
financial management.
California dam safety regulations are set for a significant
update after the California Water Commission approved changes
proposed by the state Department of Water Resources (DWR)
Wednesday, April 15, 2026. Under DWR’s Division of Safety
of Dams (DSOD), the state proposed additions and modifications
to existing dam safety regulations. The Division of Safety of
Dams updated Articles Two, Five, Six and Seven to clarify the
application process for dam alterations, repairs and removals,
as well as time extensions and how unlawfully constructed dams
are addressed. The changes also require the State Water Project
to cover DSOD labor costs, eliminate hard copies of technical
memorandums, allow written hearings and simplify the lien
process.
The Salinas Watsonville growing region was beset by significant
amounts of rain this past weekend, so it was time to go out and
have a look. It’s tough to see this, since while the crews are
out picking as they have been for about a month, the fruit is
being thrown away rather than put into clamshells and boxes for
shipping. Removing all the damaged fruit of course is good
field practice and is done to maintain good sanitation around
the plant, keeping things on the up and up to prepare for
better days ahead. Much of the damage in the pictures below has
to do with “water soaking”, meaning the riper fruit has pulled
water into itself via osmotic pressure and the extra water
coming in so quick has subsequently burst the
epidermis.
