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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California water regulators have approved a permit for
Sites Reservoir, clearing the way for
construction of the state’s first new major reservoir
in decades. Plans call for two large dams about 300
feet high, as well as nine smaller ones, holding water pumped
from the Sacramento River and inundating about
15,000 acres in a valley northwest of
Sacramento. After a heated debate, the State
Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously late Wednesday
to approve the water right permit for the
reservoir near the community of Maxwell.
… State officials and managers of water agencies said
the $7 billion reservoir will be a critical part of
California’s efforts to adapt to climate change.
… Construction is scheduled to begin next year and
conclude in 2034. Opponents, including environmental
activists and fishing advocates, urged the board to reject the
permit, saying the reservoir would siphon too much
water out of the Sacramento River and harm salmon and other
native fish.
The weather is dry for the moment, but signs across the
atmosphere are painting a clear picture for when the first
atmospheric river will bring rain to California. As El
Niño begins to lock into the atmosphere, it will continue
toset up patterns like the one we will see
next week, with lower pressure just offshore and a
lingering dome of high pressure across the central United
States. Patterns like this that hold in place for a week
or more are exceptional at squeezing out oceanic
moisture in the form of atmospheric rivers. … And
the first of the season for Central California is
taking shape for next week. … Early projections
show Sacramento could receive its entire November rain
average — nearly two inches — in the short window.
Other areas statewide could see similar numbers, with a general
trend for more rain falling in Northern California. … An
early look at what this would mean for Sierra snow
shows several feet.
Other California El Niño forecast and preparation news:
Heavy rains pounded Arizona and the Four Corners region in
recent weeks, and the effects were nearly impossible to miss.
Storms drenched places like Flagstaff, Winslow and Durango,
Colorado, surging through rivers, across streets and into
homes. Steady rain made for a soggy Halloween in the Phoenix
area. Floods made it hard to reach the polls in some parts of
Navajo Nation. For all of the ways those rains reshaped
life in the Southwest recently, they barely made a dent in the
region’s water supply crisis. … The Central
Arizona Project, which brings water from the Colorado River to
the Phoenix and Tucson areas, keeps a close eye on upstream
conditions. Even after days of soaking rain, those
conditions hardly changed.
Across Arizona’s high country, mountain streams are getting a
little busier as wildlife crews return Gila trout to
their native waters. In October, the Arizona Game and
Fish Department and its partners stocked the threatened
fish in Chase and Bonita creeks along the Mogollon Rim,
tosupport the species’ recovery. The
fish were supplied by the Mora National Fish Hatchery in New
Mexico, operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which
has been breeding and raising Gila trout since 1999, according
to the Game and Fish department.The effort is part of a
broader campaign to rebuild populations of Gila trout, which
remain classified as threatened under the Endangered Species
Act of 1973. … Each individual trout was
measured and implanted with a microchip tag before release so
an AZGFD biologist can track how the fish grow, survive and
disperse throughout the watershed over time.
Voters made it clear this week that they want to see limits put
on data centers for artificial intelligence, passing 40 of 41
proposed ballot measures that would place restrictions
on some of the more than 2,000 new facilities planned for
communities around the nation. Water and power top the
list of ratepayers’ concerns. But calculating how much each
data center draws from local resources is an elusive task, with
operators typically reporting usage figures companywide instead
of site by site. Giant 1-gigawatt AI data centers from the
likes of Meta, Google, Amazon and SpaceX can consume up
to 10 million gallons of water per day, according to
Shaolei Ren, a data center researcher and professor at
University of California, Riverside. The exact number varies
greatly depending on what type of hardware is inside a data
center, where it’s built, and what method is used to
cool the servers and the building as a whole.
Katrina and Terry Tolbert have been arrested and accused of
diverting more than 4 million gallons of water from the
Town of Palmer Lake through a buried pipe at their
property off Highway 105, according to police records reviewed
by KRDO13 Investigates. The investigation began after a
water department employee noticed the town was losing far more
water than it could explain. His audit showed monthly losses
rose from a few hundred thousand gallons to more than 1 million
in October 2025. The losses stayed high even after crews found
and repaired several leaks. … These concerns were
further heightened by the fact that the alleged theft
occurred while the Town was under water emergency restrictions,
requiring residents and businesses to conserve this critical
resource.
Incumbent John Varela of Morgan Hill led in his bid for
re-election while fellow incumbent Rebecca Eisenberg of Palo
Alto trailed in her effort to win a second term in the race for
the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board. At 11 p.m.,
Varela, the former mayor of Morgan Hill, led challenger Jimmy
Forbis, 58%-41% in District 1 in the South County. Eisenberg,
an attorney who formerly worked for PayPal and other tech
companies and who was censured twice by fellow board members
for misconduct, trailed former Los Altos Mayor Pete Dailey
57%-42% in District 7, which includes parts of the Peninsula.
In District 6, representing San Jose, Phuong Nguyen, a staff
member for state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, led non-profit
director Milan Balinton 54%-45%. The largest water
agency in Silicon Valley, the district is a government agency
that provides water and flood protection to 2 million
people.
The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board has proposed
a $4.1 million settlement with the former and current owners of
a South Lake Tahoe, California, property to address
tetrachloroethylene (PCE) contamination affecting municipal
drinking water supplies. … The settlement is intended to
protect drinking water supplies affected by a groundwater plume
originating from dry-cleaning activities at the property
between 1972 and 1979. … If approved, the
settlement would establish a 59-year groundwater monitoring and
response program using monitoring wells to detect elevated PCE
levels before they reach municipal wells. It would also fund
groundwater treatment as needed, compensate the water providers
for past and ongoing impacts and continue remediation at the
contamination source through measures such as soil vapor
extraction and targeted groundwater treatment.
Toxic waste dumped into the Tijuana River can travel up to 7
times farther than previously thought before evaporating into
the atmosphere, significantly degrading air quality across a
20-mile radius in San Diego, according to a new study from UC
Riverside. Published in Scientific Reports, the research
details how this untreated sewage, which is a mix of household
wastewater, industrial discharge, and urban runoff, enters the
Pacific Ocean at Imperial Beach. These wastewater chemicals
remain submerged in ocean currents long enough to drift
northward along the San Diego coastline before venting into the
atmosphere. This mechanism explains why pollution linked to the
Tijuana River was found near the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography pier in La Jolla, approximately 22 miles north of
the river’s mouth.
A parade of El Niño-fueled storms has boosted southwest
Colorado’s snowpack. The 9NEWS Weather Impact Team said
Colorado’s statewide snowpack stands at 125% of average
for November 3, the highest level for this point in
the winter season since 2022, driven largely by storms in the
southern part of the state. … The snowpack
measure, which began October 1, averages all eight of
Colorado’s key river basins. [Meteorologist Chris]
Bianchi cautioned that the 125% snowpack figure is a little bit
of a misleading stat because of a sharp divide across the
state. Northern Colorado’s percentages are in most cases
well-below average, while southern Colorado has two,
three, or even four times the snow typical for this time of
year. The snow has come at a steep cost in the
southwest, with flooding events in Pagosa
Springs and the Piedra and San Juan rivers.
California’s State Water Resources Control Board committed to
public scoping hearings on Trinity River water quality
and flow issues after hours of debate and testimony
from tribal communities on Oct. 29. The decision came after
dozens of tribal members testified that the Bay-Delta
process failed to address major impacts on the Klamath-Trinity
River system. Most of the Trinity River, the Klamath’s
largest tributary, is diverted to the
Bay-Delta for use by agribusiness interests.
… The resolution the board added to the Bay-Delta Plan
falls short of what counties, tribal members and environmental
advocates requested. Those requests included a water
rights hearing, protections for federal flow
decisions and changes in temperature standards.
October was a banner month for Lake Powell, a key
Colorado River reservoir straddling the
Utah-Arizona state line, as rainstorms sent billions of gallons
into the pool behind Glen Canyon Dam. What
that means for ongoing drawdowns from Flaming Gorge Reservoir
on the Wyoming-Utah border is uncertain. Between Oct. 21
and Oct. 28, the reservoir’s contents increased by 537,540
acre-feet, or roughly 175 billion gallons, raising its level by
nine to 10 feet, according to reservoir data. The surge
was primarily driven by flooding along the San Juan
River in the Four Corners region. All told, Lake
Powell gained about 600,000 acre-feet from its
September low through late October. Coincidentally,
600,000-acre feet is roughly the amount released from
Flaming Gorge over the past few months to make
up for Lake Powell shortfalls.
With a little more than half the vote counted early Wednesday,
voters appeared to be rejecting the idea of amending
the California Environmental Quality Act. Prop. 45,
which would change the state’s landmark environmental review
law by setting deadlines for environmental reviews and related
lawsuits on certain projects, was losing 54 percent to 46
percent. Supporters had said the changes would reduce building
costs. The California Chamber of Commerce sponsored Proposition
45, the Building an Affordable California Act, which would
limit the length of environmental reviews for projects deemed
“essential” to 365 business days and require courts to resolve
litigation in 270 calendar days. Those projects include
housing, water, broadband and transit
developments.
Besides local races, state races and propositions, some Ventura
County voters are voting on whether or not to approve a
$350 million water bond this election. Known
as Measure D, the United Water Conservation District is
asking county voters within its service area to approve
the bond to help fund three capital improvements projects it
says are required. The bond, if passed, would
cost property owners in the district’s service area
approximately $24 per $100,000 of assessed value annually.
United Water says the bond would run 30 years, from 2028
through 2057. It would help fund improvements to the
Santa Felicia Dam, Freeman Diversion, and Extraction Barrier
and Brackish Water Treatment. … [T]he dam is
classified as an extremely high hazard dam by the state due to
the high population amount below the dam.
Democratic gubernatorial candidates who pledged to halt data
centre development swept to victory on Tuesday night,
threatening to derail billions of dollars of planned
investments for the AI boom over the coming years.
… The “blue wave” of results on Tuesday, which also
included a number of local ballot measures blocking the data
centre construction, marked a sharp rebuke to President Donald
Trump’s endorsement of the AI infrastructure building spree.
… AI spending by a small number of Big Tech companies
has supported much of the stock market gains since Trump took
office. But the power-hungry computing complexes have sparked
nationwide anxiety over their impact on air and noise pollution
and electricity and water bills.
Downstream Missouri River states have worried for decades about
receiving an insufficient flow of water from upstream dams. Now
they’re worried their share of water could be further
diminished by potential pipelines for dry Western
states. The concern is the basis of a dispute about
the U.S. House version of the federal Water Resources
Development Act. A provision in the bill would require
approval from all governors in Missouri River states to study
or construct a project that moves water from the river or its
tributaries to a non-Missouri River state.
… The governors of Montana, North Dakota and South
Dakota — where the Missouri River flows through a series of
dams and reservoirs — recently joined with governors in the
Missouri River Basin states of Colorado and
Wyoming on a letter opposing the House provision. Also
signing the letter was the governor of Utah. … Utah
relies on the Colorado River for some of its water,
and the state’s Great Salt Lake Commission has
mentioned the Missouri River as a potential source of
imported water for the vanishing Great Salt Lake.
Waste dumped into the Tijuana River can travel seven times
farther than expected before becoming airborne and affecting
San Diego’s air, at least 20 miles from its source, according
to UC Riverside research. The river carries a complex
mixture of untreated sewage from toilets, industrial waste, and
urban runoff into the Pacific Ocean at Imperial Beach. The
study, published in Scientific Reports, found that wastewater
chemicals can remain in the ocean long enough to then travel
north along the San Diego coast before escaping into the
atmosphere. The finding helps explain why researchers detected
Tijuana River-linked pollution in the air near the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography pier in La Jolla, roughly 22 miles
from the river mouth. … Previous research demonstrated
that human waste flowing through the Tijuana River affects air
quality in communities near the border. For this study, the
researchers wanted to know whether the pollution might extend
further.
Voters on Tuesday rejected an effort to enshrine the right to
hunt and fish in the Colorado Constitution. As of 10 p.m., 56%
of votes tabulated opposed Amendment 83, and 44% supported it.
The measure needed the support of at least 55% of voters to
pass because it is a constitutional amendment. Proponents of
Amendment 83 conceded defeat late Tuesday. … Hunting and
fishing are protected by state law. Besides elevating that to
the state constitution, the amendment also would designate the
activities as the preferred method for managing wildlife
populations and provide for the use of “traditional methods.”
It also more strictly defines when Colorado Parks and Wildlife
and the state legislature could change hunting and fishing
regulations. … Proponents of the amendment — primarily
hunting groups, including large out-of-state donors — said the
change is necessary to defend hunting from potential ballot
measures, laws or regulatory changes.
The California Tahoe Conservancy (Conservancy) invites
community members to the next round of public meetings on the
Marsh South Restoration Project on November 18 and 19, 2026. At
the two meetings, the Conservancy will engage the public about
the proposed restoration project in the southern part of méšuk
málɨm, formerly known as the Upper Truckee Marsh, in South Lake
Tahoe. Proposed project elements include significant river and
wetland restoration downstream of U.S. Highway 50, including
the site of the former Motel 6. To facilitate the restoration,
the Conservancy also proposes to modify the South Tahoe Bikeway
and river access. … The Conservancy proposes to restore
historical wetland habitat, which will include removing fill
from past development, lowering the floodplain to reconnect it
to the river, and removing encroaching conifers.
Floods have overwhelmed parts of the parched American Southwest
in recent days and weeks, pouring water into critically
low reservoirs. But the deluge did little to ease
worries over the water crisis that required significant limits
on usage across the Colorado River basin
earlier this year. Instead, it exemplified a sort of
weather whiplash that is becoming more common
as the climate warms, making it harder to maintain a
stable water supply for the West. Right after enduring
one of its driest stretches of spring and summer on record, the
Southwest is now experiencing one of its wettest
autumns. … [T]he wet weather could provide
some medium-term benefits. … The rain has saturated
soils across much of the Southwest, causing more precipitation
to run off rather than percolate into the ground. While that is
making the floods worse, it could also mean that more
of any precipitation that falls in the coming months will make
it into reservoirs.
