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 Trump administration’s plan for dealing with worsening
water shortages along the Colorado River is encountering strong
opposition from Arizona’s leaders, who are warning they could
sue to challenge mandatory water cutbacks that they say would
harm their state. A legal fight could end up before the
U.S. Supreme Court and further complicate efforts by
seven Western states to agree on how to share water from the
shrinking river and its reservoirs, which have fallen to record
low levels. Arizona laid out its objections in a sharply worded
letter to the federal government last week. It said the Trump
administration’s 10-year plan doesn’t adhere to the
Colorado River Compact, the 1922 agreement that originally
divided the water among the states.
A Ninth Circuit panel granted a win to the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation Monday, confirming a lower court’s finding the
conversion of water service contracts from the
California Central Valley Project doesn’t require a new
environmental review. A three-judge panel unanimously
held the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act
required the bureau to change a contract if requested by a
water user, and does not necessitate the agency undertake
environmental review under the National Environmental Policy
Act or Endangered Species Act before converting each water
service contract. … In a statement to Courthouse
News, John Buse of the Center for Biological Diversity,
representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “unfortunate.”
Want to water your grass limitlessly without risking a fine? In
some Front Range towns,residents still can water without
inhibition despite searing drought.Nearly the entire state is
in some level of drought, according to U.S. Drought Monitor
data released Thursday, but the aridity is especially intense
over the highly populated urban corridor and the mountains that
are the source of much of Colorado’s water. … Despite
widespread severe drought, 13 of the 25 largest cities
and towns in Colorado have not implemented additional mandatory
water use restrictions. … Water managers in many of
the communities without additional drought restrictions have
asked customers to voluntarily cut back water use, to varying
degrees of success.
… Two major data center bills passed a key committee
last week as California’s legislative session nears its close
at the end of this month. Senate Bill 886 aimsto
prevent data centers from raising utility costs for other
consumers, while SB 887 would incentivize
developers to invest in clean energy and nearby communities.
… It’s unclear how Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will respond to
bills opposed by politically powerful utilities and tech
companies. Last year, Newsom vetoed a bill that would
have required data centers to report their water
usage. … But the politics are shifting.
… Around the entire Willcox Basin, estimates are that
more than 100 drinking wells have dried up in recent
years. Regulators from the Arizona Department of Water
Resources have proposed cutting water use by
farms — by far the basin’s largest water user — by
10% to reduce the pressure on the area’s long-depleted
aquifer. … State officials tookthe first
step this month towards curbing the Willcox Basin’s chronic
groundwater overdraft. Following more than a decade of building
anger and anguished debate over water use and drying wells in
the basin, ADWR has proposed torequire most farmers in the
1,911-square-mile basin covering parts of Cochise and Graham
counties to cut their water use by 10% starting in 2029. But
already, Steve Kisiel, leader of an activist group in the basin
called Cochise Groundwater Stewards, said he’s received
anecdotal accounts of “easily more than 100” wells in the basin
that had to be deepened after they’d gone dry.
A vessel with golden mussels was stopped Saturday by marine
inspectors before it reached the water at Folsom Lake after the
invasive species was found attached to the craft. California
State Parks officials said the discovery was another example of
the ongoing effort to keep golden mussels out of California
waterways and a reminder for boaters to remain vigilant when
launching their vessels. … The lake, owned and
operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, remains free of
golden mussels, state officials said. The mussels were
discovered Saturday attached to the hull of a boat bound for
Folsom Lake at a decontamination site operated by Mello Marine,
a boat dealer on Folsom-Auburn Road.
At its next meeting Wednesday, the Ukiah City Council is
scheduled to consider nearly tripling the amount of financial
support the city provides toward activities related to the
pending decommissioning of the Potter Valley Project, a
hydroelectric plant in Mendocino County that the Pacific Gas
and Electric Company is seeking to dismantle.
According to the agenda staff report prepared for the Aug. 19
meeting, the board is being asked to consider approving a
contribution of “up to $215,000 to the Mendocino County Inland
Water and Power Commission for Fiscal Year 2026–27 …for
activities related to the Potter Valley Project.”
A regional aquatic team for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, geared
up in waders, waterproof neoprene socks and safety gloves,
moved along last week in the waters of the Lower Dolores River.
The venture Aug. 12 was a fishing operation near the Dove Creek
Pump Station to survey native fish populations. … The stretch
referred to starts below McPhee Reservoir, flowing more than
100 miles until merging with the San Miguel River. It is seen
by CPW biologists as a particularly significant stronghold for
the residential roundtail chub, bluehead sucker, flannelmouth
sucker and a secondary fourth native, the Colorado River
sculpin, which all together support the wider ecosystem’s
health that eventually flows 87 more miles to reach the
Colorado River. The team at CPW uses 30 years worth of data to
understand trends and the overall fishery health at multiple
sites.
A long-discussed transformation of De Anza Cove in Mission Bay
has cleared a key hurdle, giving the City of San Diego a path
toward dramatically expanding wetlands while maintaining space
for recreation and camping. … De Anza Cove is home to a
mix of recreational uses, including walking, paddling, golfing,
camping, and an RV resort. Nearby is the Kendall-Frost Marsh
Reserve, a natural habitat for numerous species. … Under
the plan, marshland could expand significantly by taking in
part of the current Campland site. … The expanded
wetlands could help protect natural habitat and the surrounding
area from flooding.
Namibia’s capital Windhoek faces a challenge that many
fast-growing citiesmay soon confront: How do you secure more
water when there is almost none to spare? In one of the driest
regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, every drop counts. That
necessity led Windhoek to become the first city in the world,
back in the 1960s, to turn treated wastewater directly into
drinking water, a system that today supplies more than a third
of the city’s water needs. The city built in an arid climate is
combining pioneering water recycling, underground water
storage, and community-led conservation to cope with chronic
water scarcity. What lessons can other water-stressed cities
learn from a place where wasting water simply isn’t an option?
Is climate change enough justification to stop the expansion of
a reservoir that will take more water from the dwindling
Colorado River? That’s the central question in a lawsuit
pitting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Colorado’s largest
water utility against a consortium of environmental nonprofits.
The environmentalists say the Colorado River has no more water
to give, while Denver Water, the utility whose Gross
Reservoir would nearly triple in capacity, argues it
is ensuring its customers can withstand droughts. The Corps
contends it is not required to consider climate change or the
downstream effects of its expansion of a dam to grow the
reservoir. The case in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
has the potential to ripple through Western water
management as states, tribes, cities and the federal
government struggle to find a compromise on how to steeply cut
water use.
A California Democrat’s proposal to enshrine Biden-era water
quality rules in state law to backstop potential rollbacks
under the Trump administration has died in the state
Legislature amid continued opposition from farmers and water
agencies. State Assembly Appropriations Chair Buffy
Wicks announced on Thursday that state Sen. Ben Allen’s SB 601
was held back, meaning it won’t be voted on this year. It’s the
second year in a row that Allen tried — and failed — to get his
bill through the committee. Sean Bothwell, the executive
director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance, which
sponsored the bill, said in an interview that he had tried to
reach a deal with the governor’s office and the State Water
Resources Control Board on the bill over the past couple of
months, but ultimatelydid not agree to all the administration’s
proposed changes because they removed some of the environmental
protections in the bill.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has denied two late
requests to intervene in the decommissioning of the Potter
Valley Project sought by its owner, the Pacific Gas and
Electric Company, Mendocino County officials reported. In a
press release this week, the Mendocino County Inland Water and
Power Commission explained that Elsinore Valley Municipal Water
District of Southern California and Infrastruk Group LLC, a
company based out of Southern California and Spain, had both
sought “to intervene as formal parties in PG&E’s Potter
Valley Project license surrender proceeding,” and both
requests were denied by FERC, “allowing the federal process to
continue.” … With the facility no longer
cost-effective and its dams deemed a safety risk, PG&E is
now seeking to abandon the project while a locally-formed group
called the Eel-Russian Project Authority seeks to continue
water diversions.
The Yurok Tribe and other plaintiffs on Friday asked a San
Francisco federal judge to once again intervene in a
long-running conflict with the feds over water releases from
the Klamath Irrigation Project in Northern California after the
Trump administration said last year that irrigation should take
priority over threatened salmon species. The Klamath Project
supplies water to more than 225,000 acres of farmland and two
wildlife refuges in the Klamath Basin along the
Oregon-California border. But critics say the project has
decimated the local Chinook and Coho salmon population.
… Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick didn’t
indicate on Friday how he might rule on the tribe’s motion for
summary judgment.
… The Colorado drought map released Aug. 13 shows
99% of the state is some designation of drought status, a
percentage that has stayed steady the past three months. …
Making matters worse is the worst drought
conditions, mainly due to historically low
snowpack, are right where we, and millions of others,
can least afford to have drought. … [Colorado State
Climatologist Russ] Schumacher said when really strong El
Niños have formed like this year, which are rare, the Northern
Front Range has seen particularly wet falls. El Niño
winters have produced some above-average snowpack
years, but Schumacher said the correlation between big
snowpack years in the mountains and El Niño years is not as
clear.
Questions about artificial intelligence and jobs, ethics, even
the end of humanity may be swirling through the ethernet right
now but folks in the San Joaquin Valley want to know:
What about the water? Proposals for two “mini”
AI data centers on the fairgrounds in Tulare and Kings counties
recently generated a firestorm of questions and angry comments.
They are far from approval, but residents fear the notorious
power and water guzzling centers will drain already
stressed water supplies. Whether they would depends on
a lot of factors, including the size and type of data
center. One thing is certain, whatever water they use, it
must be accounted for, according to water managers.
… Help may now be on the way for boat owners, farmers and
water company managers eager for a solution to ward off the
quickly propagating bivalves. A Davis-based company is readying
a test in Stockton of a biodegradable treatment that
kills golden mussels without damaging surrounding aquatic
wildlife. The biobased product, Zequanox, is already
being used on quagga and zebra mussels, two other invaders that
have bedeviled the nation over the past few years. … To
show what it can do against golden mussels in the Delta,
the product will be tested in the local marina
that’s home to the Stockton Sailing Club on Buckley Cove Way
this fall.
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority extended an
agreement with the U.S. Navy to drill groundwater
monitoring wells in a specific location while it works
to get data from the Indian Wells Valley Water District that
already has monitoring wells in that same location. The
agreement, which involves funding from the Navy-Coso Royalty
fund, was set to expire Aug. 31, 2026. That fund is made up of
payments from geothermal companies that operate on Navy land.
Under the agreement, the Navy-Coso Royalties fund will pay up
to $300,000 for the authority to drill two groundwater
monitoring wells and the authority is to pay Stetson
Engineering $75,000 in related project costs.
… At its core, “low-tech, process-based restoration” — the
name bestowed on the process — entails simply letting creeks
and streams do what they’ve done for millions of years: Go with
the flow. When water bodies are confined within their
banks, they cut deep channels in the ground. … That, in turn,
increases the flow rate and reduces opportunities for the water
to seep into the ground. … In 2021, [stream
ecologist Rose] Smith and group of Sageland employees and
volunteers placed human-made beaver dams along
McLeod Creek. These “analog dams” are obstacles that
force the stream to break out of its rut. … In
an interview Friday, [Utah Rep. Doug] Owens said the House
Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee
has agreed to hear a presentation on beaver dam analogs
during its fall interim committee meeting.
Golden State Water customers in Los Angeles and Orange counties
were hit with a hefty increase in their water bills last year,
and now, if the state approves the company’s latest request,
those bills could climb 30% more by 2030. That’ll mean about
$25 more per month for the average residential customer. Those
customers aren’t alone, however. Such increases have become
increasingly common in Southern California as utilities and
water districts grapple with the broader economy, climate
change, higher import and treatment costs and a never-ending
battle against aging infrastructure, experts say. Last year,
researchers at UCLA found the water bill for an average
household in L.A. County jumped nearly 60% from 2015 to 2025.
