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.
Heavy rain and flash flooding soaked roads in northern
California, leading to water rescues from vehicles and homes
and at least one confirmed death, authorities said Monday.
… The National Weather Service expects rain through the
Christmas week as a series of atmospheric rivers was forecast
to make its way through Northern California. A large swath of
the Sacramento Valley and surrounding areas were under
a flood watch through Friday. … Up to 6
feet of snow was predicted for parts of the Sierra
Nevada and winds could reach 55 mph in high
elevations by Wednesday.
California state water managers are likely to be able to
increase how much water they pump out of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta under a new set of environmental rules
approved Thursday, which align the state more closely with
federal water managers. The California Department of Fish and
Wildlife on Thursday largely approved the Department of Water
Resources’ request to loosen the operating rules of the State
Water Project. … The new rules give state water managers
greater leeway to pump more water out of the Delta,
particularly during the winter and spring, when young Delta
smelt can get caught up in and die at the pumps.
Until last week, Adam Sullivan was Nevada’s state engineer —
the person most responsible for managing water in the nation’s
driest state. That changed when state officials confirmed
Sullivan’s departure from the role — an unusual move, given
that the state engineer often serves under multiple governors
and must have expertise in Nevada’s oft-byzantine set of water
laws and regulations. So what happened? In his first
public comments since news of his departure broke, Sullivan
said he was terminated amid complaints about his decisions,
telling The Nevada Independent that there were a number of
disagreements between himself, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s
office and the director of his department that escalated over
the last six months.
San Diego arrived in Las Vegas this week ready to sell off some
of its excess water at negotiations over the dwindling Colorado
River between the states, tribes and farmers who use it. They
left without a deal in place. Dan Denham, the San Diego
County Water Authority’s general manager, has been hinting
there’s willing buyers of San Diego’s expensive desalinated
ocean water in the state of Arizona. Arizona is first in line
to have their Colorado River supply cut off during water
shortages. That very scenario is what the annual Las Vegas
negotiations were set up to prevent.
A controversial recent study highlights an old truth
about the American West’s snowpack: it’s difficult to
measure—and just as hard to forecast how much of its water will
ultimately reach tens of millions of people and vast swaths of
farmland. Water managers have increasingly turned to aircraft
that use lasers to gauge the snowpack across entire basins. But
the Aug. 15 scientific paper argues for a less expensive
strategy: focusing new monitoring efforts on a select number of
locations known as “hotspots” that excel at predicting how much
water will run off from the snowpack—a frozen reservoir that
can change dramatically over short distances.
The Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
have stepped in to address concerns involving the Potter Valley
Hydroelectric Project. According to Congressman Doug LaMalfa,
this intervention aims to protect vital water supplies critical
for agriculture and firefighting efforts across several
counties. In a press release published by … LaMalfa, he
praised USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins and the Trump
Administration for demanding that the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission consider the real-world impacts before proceeding.
… On November 4, 2025, a group of 30 researchers, lawyers,
agency managers, and growers with subject-matter expertise met
in Davis to discuss the challenges and potential opportunities
for small farmers to participate in groundwater markets that
are currently developing under SGMA. … Among the issues
raised were identifying ways of addressing equity concerns,
preserving the vitality of small farmers, mitigating any
negative labor and employment effects of markets, and
preventing forms of market influence that could disadvantage
small farmers.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed a new leader to head the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries division,
the agency responsible for managing the nation’s marine
fisheries and conserving protected ocean species. The Senate
approved Timothy Petty as the new Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, the top position overseeing
NOAA Fisheries, on Dec. 19, 2025. … Petty previously
served as a senior staffer for the U.S. House Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Water and
Environment, and as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science
at the Department of the Interior from 2018 to 2021.
The California Water Institute at Fresno State released a new
report showcasing how applied research, education and strategic
partnerships are supporting responses to California’s pressing
water challenges. Amid historic droughts, climate extremes and
growing pressure on groundwater supplies, the report
underscores how the institute’s work is helping communities as
they plan for long-term resilience. Its release comes as
federal lawmakers introduce new water infrastructure
legislation aimed at expanding storage capacity and improving
project delivery across California, highlighting the need for
research, data tools and collaborative planning to help local
agencies prepare for future water conditions.
… On a crisp morning in northwest Colorado, Joseph Leonhard,
The Nature Conservancy’s Riparian Restoration Project Manager,
wades into Yellow Creek—a tributary of the White River. With
deliberate care, he places sticks and mud in a pattern that
echoes the engineering genius of beavers, which once shaped
this landscape. … Over time, these simple, hand-built
structures begin to transform the ecosystem—nurturing native
plants, attracting wildlife, reducing wildfire risk and
bolstering resilience to drought. This is low-tech process
based restoration (LTPBR), and it’s reshaping the future of
fresh water in Colorado and beyond.
Opponents of a plan to remove two Pacific Gas & Electric-owned
dams from the Eel River in Lake and Mendocino counties have
officially won a huge ally: the Trump administration.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Friday filed a notice
to intervene in the utility giant’s bid to decommission its
waterworks in the rural area, which also include a century-old
power plant that helps to shunt Eel River water into irrigation
canals that support Mendocino County’s Potter Valley and dump
into the upper Russian River, boosting supplies for farms and
hundreds of thousands of urban dwellers in the North Bay.
A dangerous sequence of storms from the Pacific Ocean is
sweeping through Northern California and the Sierra Nevada
Mountains –– prompting heavy flooding and road closures across
parts of the region during the busy holiday travel season.
… Shasta County and other parts of Northern California
remain under a flood warning until midday
Monday, while much of Central California is under a flood watch
until Friday. … Northern California will see its
heaviest rainfall Monday and Tuesday – when up to 5 inches are
expected across the Northern Sierra and 3 inches along the
coastal regions, the NWS said Sunday. … Heavy snow is
also forecast over the Sierras, where an
additional 2 to 4 feet is expected – a stark contrast
from the snow drought the Sierras are currently experiencing.
… The single most important gathering of Colorado River
Basin officials came and went — with no significant
announcements regarding the often frustrating yet crucial
seven-state negotiations for how to divvy up the river over the
next 20 years. … Experts said at the three-day Colorado
River Water Users Association conference that if meaningful
conservation doesn’t happen in states both upstream and
downstream, leaders in the West could be headed for remarkably
hard decisions about the future. Governors and negotiators from
the seven states have an open invitation to the nation’s
capital, where Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has indicated he
would like to have a joint meeting. Nevada Gov. Joe
Lombardo asked Burgum this month to schedule it for
January.
As Californians break out umbrellas for a rainy holiday,
specialized crews are gearing up to fly their planes directly
into the winter’s incoming atmospheric rivers. … This winter,
leading climate institutions including UC San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography are ramping up a research program
that uses the planes to monitor atmospheric rivers —
the ribbons of water vapor in the sky that can drop up
to half of California’s annual precipitation. A goal
of the effort, announced Tuesday, is to improve forecasts from
the current one-week advanced storm warnings to more like two
weeks. … For California, improved forecasts not only
offer residents more time to plan for rain and snow, but the
warning can also make a big difference for reservoir
management in the state.
California is getting plenty of rain this winter — but what’s
really needed is snow. While record high temperatures have
ensured that a series of massive Pacific storms known as
atmospheric rivers dump heavy rain across the West, the balmy
weather has led to one of the lowest snow covers since 2001.
The forecast calls for more rain this week. With all the
warmth, precipitation has fallen as rain instead of snow across
many basins, leading to snow drought … The threats created by
lack of snow in winter or limited overall precipitation are
actually similar: wildfires, future drought and low reservoir
levels. The West’s water supplies are built on snow, which
provides California with 30 percent of its supply.
The Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
approved a pumping allocation over objections from neighboring
agencies and without any indication it will be approved by the
state. … The Mid-Kings board approved a pumping allocation of
1.43 acre feet per acre of land, more than twice that of the
neighboring South Fork Kings GSA, which is proposing .66 of an
acre foot per acre of land for its farmers. South Fork and
several other entities have objected to Mid-Kings’ allocation,
saying it’s far too generous. … The uncertainty about
state reaction is compounded by the fact that the state isn’t
meeting with water managers in the Tulare Lake subbasin, which
covers most of Kings County, because of a pending legal action.
When the Colorado Water Conservation Board voted unanimously
last month to approve the $99 million purchase of the Shoshone
water rights from Xcel Energy, Western Slope communities called
it a “once-in-a-lifetime” deal. In Grand County, the decision
lands closer to home. For people living at the headwaters of
the Colorado River, it’s a promise that water will keep flowing
west, offering a safeguard for ranchers, recreation businesses
and the river itself. … By securing them permanently for
instream flows, the Colorado River District and its partners
ensured that water will continue downstream even if the aging
plant shuts down.
Local officials are again distributing air purifiers to
residents inundated with pollution from the Tijuana River
sewage crisis after they botched their first attempt to do so.
The first batch of 400 air purifiers distributed through a
lottery system under former District 1 Supervisor Nora Vargas
lacked the necessary filters to clean the gases in the air.
Specifically, the first purifiers lacked the necessary
potassium permanganate and charcoal to effectively filter toxic
gases. A contractor also failed to transfer applicant
information to the San Diego County Air Pollution Control
District, forcing people to reapply for the purifiers without
notification.
The southern steelhead trout has been low in numbers in recent
years, but one Huntington Beach high school is now prepared to
lend a hand toward saving the species. Edison High held a
ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning for an expansion to
its campus Innovation Lab, where it will house the endangered
fish through a partnership with the California Department of
Fish and Wildlife. The new system, funded by the Resource
Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains through a
CDFW grant, will protect up to 650 trout rescued from creeks
impacted by drought, wildfire and debris flows. … Two
large holding tanks will contain the trout, while a water
cleansing system ensures they are safe until a new habitat can
be found.
A local renewable energy and critical minerals company is
poised to go public through a merger with a New York-based
special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a move aimed
at bolstering U.S. energy security and domestic supply chains
for electric vehicles and advanced technologies, according to a
CTR press release. … If completed, the business combination
would list the combined company on a major U.S. stock exchange,
providing capital to accelerate development of ACR’s flagship
Hell’s Kitchen project at the Salton Sea.
… Imperial County officials and residents have long seen
the Salton Sea region — dubbed “Lithium Valley” — as a
potential economic boon, bringing jobs and revenue while
addressing environmental challenges around the shrinking sea.
