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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A group of states that use water from the Colorado River is
proposing a new way to break the deadlock in negotiations about
the river’s future: bringing in a moderator. After states blew
through a mid-February deadline for a new plan about sharing
the river’s shrinking supply, the Upper Basin states of
Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and Utah are calling
for state leaders to return to the negotiating table and bring
a moderator into the room. “I really would like to see the
swords laid down,” Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s top water
negotiator, told KJZZ. “Particularly the threats of litigation.
That creates a scenario where it’s really hard to be creative.”
A plan to install a tunnel beneath a 45-mile stretch of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has moved closer to final approval
after a state agency determined most of the project’s
certification was consistent with a regulatory plan. … The
Delta Stewardship Council voted 6-1 Thursday to return two
issues related to the Delta Conveyance Project back to the
California Department of Water Resources for further review,
while rejecting most appeals filed by 10 groups challenging the
project’s compliance with policies. … The decision
allows the state to continue advancing permitting for the
proposed 36-foot diameter tunnel, which is intended to
move excess rain and flood water through the Delta and
deliver it directly into the State Water Project.
As California heads into its dry season, its major
reservoirs are in good shape, with statewide
storage on Friday estimated to be 20% above
normal for this time of
year. Robust rainfall in April has given a
slight boost in places — especially welcome after
an unusually dry March. The state’s overall water outlook
remains complicated, however. The Sierra snowpack,
which effectively functions as a frozen reservoir, is far below
normal. The Colorado River system, which is critical
for Southern California’s water supply, is also struggling amid
a deepening drought and below-average snowfall in the
Rocky Mountains. … The largest reservoir in California,
Shasta Lake, was at 91% of total capacity through Thursday,
which is 9% above its historical average.
The Arvin-Edison Water Storage District found invasive golden
mussels in its system last December, quickly approved a $2.5
million budget and by the first week of April had already
completed a 30-day treatment. … Time is of the essence
as golden mussel breeding ramps up with the temperature. The
mussels are tiny but cling to equipment and inside pipes,
building on each other until pipes are clogged and equipment
fails. … Meanwhile, at its April 23 meeting, the Kern
County Water Agency approved spending $350,000 to hire a
consultant to develop a mussel treatment plan. This comes more
than a month after KCWA staff notified the board that they had
already been battling an ongoing, significant infestation in a
key piece of the county’s water infrastructure, the Cross
Valley Canal.
… The California Chamber of Commerce has collected more than
945,000 signatures — nearly twice the 546,651 required — to
qualify a measure on the November statewide ballot to overhaul
the California Environmental Quality Act, commonly known as
CEQA. On Monday it will begin turning them in to elections
officials. The changes, if approved by a majority of
voters, will help lower housing, energy and water costs,
supporters say, by cutting burdensome regulations and making it
easier to build everything from homes to reservoirs to solar
farms. Environmental groups call the measure a giveaway to
developers and are lining up to fight it.
The Trump administration is urging PG&E to halt plans to
remove two aging Northern California dams that play a crucial
role in the region’s river system. … The Trump
administration’s argument was that removing the dams would cut
off critical water supply for farmers and rural communities. In
December, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins urged the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject PG&E’s plan.
FERC has jurisdiction over the facility as the federal agency
that licenses hydropower projects. The Potter Valley Project
included a hydroelectric powerhouse until 2021. Now, Rollins is
saying a potential buyer has emerged for the century-old
complex.
A House Natural Resources subcommittee this week will wade into
a fight over how to share water between farmers and tribal
fisherman in the Klamath Basin. The Subcommittee on Water,
Wildlife and Fisheries is set to take up Oregon Republican Rep.
Cliff Bentz’s H.R. 8259, the “Reclamation Project Consultation
Improvement Act.” Bentz introduced the bill earlier this month
in a bid to give irrigation districts and farmers more sway in
how flows are managed in areas where the Bureau of Reclamation
operates. That includes the Klamath Basin, where Reclamation is
rewriting the endangered species rules that govern its dams and
pumps. “Water is the lifeblood of the West, and the people
who rely on it deserve a voice in decisions that affect it,”
Bentz said in a statement, arguing that the Endangered Species
Act does not give those users sufficient input.
Utah natural resources officials say they met with local
leaders and water providers across the state this week to help
them prepare for what’s expected during what is normally the
state’s driest season, after determining that this year’s peak
snowpack runoff has officially passed. Peak runoff typically
begins about this time in the season; however, the Utah
Division of Water Resources reported Thursday that it has
“already come and gone” with statewide stream flow anticipated
to be half of the state’s median average. The current statewide
snowpack is the same as the median average for late May toward
the end of the normal runoff. That means the state’s
reservoirs aren’t expected to gain much, if anything, for the
rest of this year.
California’s largest agricultural water district wants to turn
a growing water crisis into an economic pivot. The Valley Clean
Infrastructure Plan aims to repurpose tens of thousands of
acres of water‑starved farmland in California’s San Joaquin
Valley into a massive solar‑and‑battery network, producing
power for the state’s grid, lowering energy costs for farmers,
and creating a new economic lifeline as groundwater rules force
fields to fallow. … Under California’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
aquifers in the San Joaquin Valley must reach sustainability by
the early 2040s — sharply limiting how much water farmers can
pump. District officials say that could force growers to fallow
hundreds of thousands of acres.
By some measures, Clear Lake is thriving. It holds more fish
per acre than any other lake in the United States and supports
a vast population of birds and other wildlife. But, by another
measure that has defined the lake for decades, Clear Lake is
deeply out of balance. Every year, harmful algal blooms take
over the lake’s surface, producing toxins that can make people
and animals who use the lake sick. The blooms shut down
recreational activities and strain local tourism. But now, a
group of scientists believe they have found a way to restore
Clear Lake’s water quality by tackling phosphorus, one of the
biggest drivers of the harmful algal blooms.
A Northern Arizona University professor and other researchers
are studying the monetary impacts of wildfires on local
communities. Wildfires can lead to issues like changes in the
water treatment process or the pollution of water due to
sediments, smoke and soot. That’s according to Siyu Pan, an
economics assistant professor at NAU. Her research came out of
a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. One of her studies
found that communities with lower education and household
income are more open to wildfire exposure. “So my role as an
economist in this whole study initiative would be trying to
understand more specifically the monetary aspect of wildfires’
impact on people’s drinking water pollution,” she said.
San Jose Water has announced plans to test a new system that
could turn recycled wastewater into drinking water, part of a
broader effort to strengthen Silicon Valley’s long-term water
supply as drought and climate pressures grow across the western
United States. The private utility will launch a
proof-of-concept demonstration of direct potable reuse, or DPR,
an advanced treatment process that purifies recycled wastewater
to meet California’s recently adopted regulations for drinking
water use, according to SJW officials on Wednesday. … The
demonstration will rely on a mobile purification unit costing
about $3 million. Since the system can be moved around the
utility’s service area, utility officials said SJW will allow
testing in multiple locations while also helping educate the
public about the technology.
The Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR) at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, has partnered with The
Nature Conservancy to develop a new tool for funding wetland
conservation and restoration projects through verifiable
“Coastal Resilience Assets.” The value of these assets are
based on the storm and flood protection benefits that the
wetlands provide. Wetlands play an extremely valuable role
in storm protection. For example, mangroves reduced storm
damages from Hurricane Ian by more than $4.1 billion; and in
San Francisco Bay, the value of some marshes that serve as
flood protection infrastructure exceeds $350,000 per
acre.
Every year, billions of gallons of toxic pollution flow across
the U.S.-Mexico border down the Tijuana River, bringing
untreated sewage, hazardous industrial chemicals and trash into
the Tijuana Estuary and Pacific Ocean. This pollution has
led to years of beach closures in cities like Imperial Beach,
along with growing threats to public health from waterborne and
airborne pathogens. … With a large following on TikTok,
[high school teacher Jessica] Figueroa started creating videos
about what residents are experiencing. … In a recent TikTok,
she called on Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a State of
Emergency for the Tijuana River Sewage crisis. Earlier
this month, San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre also
urged Newsom to declare a State of Emergency due to high levels
of hydrogen sulfide in the South Bay.
Opponents of the Delta Conveyance Project said Thursday they
had only days to read a 200-page draft decision that, if
approved, would destroy their way of life. They stood before
the Delta Stewardship Council, asking for more time before it
opted to deny their appeals — a move that charts a course for
the massive water diversion project to proceed. … At its
regular Thursday meeting, it denied appeals to a certificate of
consistency from 10 different agencies. However, it chose to
remand two issues — about golden mussel habitat and a local
land use concern — to the state Department of Water Resources.
… The two intake facilities near Hood will handle 6,000
cubic feet of water per second. The 45-mile tunnel will carry
water south to pumping facilities, putting it in the Bethany
Reservoir and ultimately to Southern California.
A state judge ruled this week that the Arizona Department of
Water Resources illegally changed how it evaluates whether
there’s enough groundwater to build new homes in parts of the
Valley. The decision is a win for the Home Builders Association
of Central Arizona, which had sued. State law requires builders
in certain parts of the state — including the Phoenix area —
to prove there’s an assured hundred-year water supply
for houses being built there. But shortly after Gov.
Katie Hobbs took office, she released a report showing the
Phoenix Active Management Area was short of that. … Kathleen
Ferris, senior research fellow at the Kyl Center for Water
Policy at Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for
Public Policy, joined The Show to talk about the ruling and its
potential impacts.
Last week, the federal government ordered emergency measures to
prevent water levels at Lake Powell from
falling so low that Glen Canyon Dam, which created the
reservoir, could no longer generate power or deliver water
downstream. Without this intervention, models showed that the
reservoir could drop below safe operating levels in August,
meaning that the river would not have a reliable way to flow
past the dam. This would threaten water and power supplies for
millions of people across the Southwest, as well as the flow of
water through the Grand Canyon. … In a meeting Tuesday, Upper
Basin state commissioners acknowledged the need for emergency
action but warned that this was not a long-term solution.
Despite the excessive rain and snow that California
received in April, drought has crept back into the
state, new data show. The U.S. Drought Monitor map
released on Thursday shows 65% of California as
abnormally dry and nearly 5% experiencing moderate
drought. Before now, the period from December
2025 through March 2026 marked the first time in 25 years that
California was entirely free of drought or even dryness on the
monitor. … Precipitation blanketed California during the
winter, but the record-breaking heat meant it either arrived as
rain or else melted away quickly. Preliminary data showed that
this year’s April 1 snowpack was the second lowest on record,
according to the California Department of Water Resources.
Nevada could see a longer, more dangerous and more expensive
wildfire season following the state’s warmest winter on record,
according to experts. This year’s winter has depleted
the Southwestern snowpack, increasing the likelihood
of wildfires in many areas and making for a potentially longer
peak wildfire season, experts said. “That time release
from the snowpack slowly through the summer season keeps soils
wet and vegetation green,” said Neil Lareau, a wildfire
researcher and an assistant professor of physics at the
University of Nevada, Reno. “When we lose the snow really early
or never develop that deep winter snow pack, things start
drying out a whole lot sooner,” Lareau told The Center
Square.
After four decades of piecing the San Joaquin River Parkway
together parcel by parcel, the state is preparing to hand six
of its properties — 874 acres in all — to California State
Parks, giving the long-stalled greenway its first permanent
institutional landlord. The new San Joaquin River Parkway
State Park is one of three that Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed
Wednesday under the “State Parks Forward” initiative.
… For the River Parkway Trust, which has run Sycamore
Island and other Conservancy lands under contract, the move
solves a looming problem. The Trust’s Sycamore Island operating
contract expires in June 2027.
