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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U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla rolled out two new water bills aimed at
easing the state’s growing climate-driven water shortages and
making water supplies more dependable across the state. The
Making Our Communities Resilient through Enhancing Water for
Agriculture, Technology, the Environment, and Residences Act —
the MORE WATER Act — and the Growing Resilient Operations from
Water Savings and Municipal-Agricultural
Reciprocally-beneficial Transactions, — the GROW SMART Act —
have drawn strong backing from regional water agencies, which
praised the measures as important steps toward improving water
reliability and affordability throughout the Golden State.
San Luis Obispo County has designed a new program to support
farmers who wish to stop irrigating their land. The goal: To
reduce overpumping in the Paso Robles Area Groundwater
Basin. It’s one of 21 basins in the state considered
“critically overdrafted” by the California Department of Water
Resources, which means more water is pumped from the basin than
is returned. On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Board of
Supervisors voted 4-0 to create a registry for farmers who
voluntarily decide to fallow their land. … Farmers who enroll
in the program will maintain county property tax benefits
related to their status as agricultural producers. Meanwhile,
contrary to county law, they also will be allowed to resume
irrigating their land when they want to, even if it is fallowed
for more than five years.
Water agencies of all sizes are crafting plans and forming task
forces across local, state and federal entities to protect
infrastructure from the spread of golden mussels, a tiny,
invasive species that has already spread the length of the
state’s network of waterways. In the San Joaquin Valley,
Friant Water Authority is in the midst of another round of
environmental DNA testing, this time on the entire length of
the 152-mile canal, after golden mussel eDNA was detected near
the White River intake in Tulare County. Initially, the
authority hoped the mussel was contained to the southern
reaches of its canal, in the Arvin-Edison Water Storage
District, where State Water Project supplies enter the Friant
system via the Cross Valley Canal.
Developers are descending on a rural desert
community along California’s Mexican border, trying to
build over $15 billion worth of data centers to power Silicon
Valley’s artificial intelligence boom. But concerns over
pollution and Colorado River water use have
turned one of the projects into a charged legal fight. …
Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC, started
purchasing land for the project in 2024, spending $12 million
on 95 acres in the city of Imperial, as well as $15 million
more for land in the county and nearby city of El Centro,
according to a lawsuit filed last month. … [The] company has
also said that the data center will send its used water
to the Salton Sea, helping reduce air pollution from
the drying body of water.
Go beyond the headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how
water is managed and moved across California during our annual
Water
101 Workshop on March 26. One of our most popular
events, the daylong workshop at Cal State Sacramento’s Harper
Alumni Center offers anyone new to California water issues or
newly elected to a water district board — and anyone who wants
a refresher — a chance to gain a solid statewide grounding on
water resources. Leading experts are on the agenda for the workshop that details the
historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state. Don’t miss a once-a-year
opportunity from the only organization in California
providing comprehensive, unbiased information about water
resources across the West.
Environmental groups and tribal communities submitted written
comments to state water regulators this week reiterating that
the proposed Bay-Delta water management plan weakens water
protections and could open the door to ecosystem
disaster. During a three-day hearing last week, the tribal
members warned that the plan would result in “privatizing
water, prioritizing corporate profit over people.” In a news
release on Tuesday, Gary Mulcahy of the Winnemem Wintu called
the California State Water Board “clueless,” and Regina
Chichizola, executive director of Save California Salmon,
blasted state officials’ move to “advocate for an eight-year
experiment that fails to meet water, environmental and aquatic
species needs on so many levels as the VAs currently stand.”
The Montezuma Wetlands drape across 1,800 acres of Solano
County, California, where the Sacramento River empties into San
Francisco Bay. Once drained and diked for farming and grazing,
the marsh has been rehabilitated over the past two decades, and
in 2020, tidal waters returned for the first time in a century.
… But just as the ecosystem is on the mend, another makeover
may be coming. A company called Montezuma Carbon wants to send
millions of tons of carbon dioxide from Bay Area polluters
through a 40-mile pipeline and store it in saline aquifers 2
miles beneath the wetland. … If the project proceeds, it
could be the Golden State’s first large-scale, climate-driven
carbon capture and storage site.
Gov. Katie Hobbs said Monday that unless Upper Basin states
actually offer up some firm commitments to conserve water she
won’t agree to any deal for Arizona to cut its own withdrawals
from the Colorado River. And that would lead to either Interior
Secretary Doug Burgum imposing his own solution on the seven
states that draw water from the river — or the situation having
to be hashed out in court. Only thing is, Burgum has so far
refused to do more than bring the governors of the affect
states together, as he did on Friday. … Still, the
governor said she thinks it doesn’t necessarily have to wind up
in court, even though Arizona already has set aside $3 million
for litigation.
Colorado’s snowpack situation continues to worsen despite
recent snowfall, with statewide levels dropping from 57% of
average last week to 55% of average today. … A
persistent ridge of high pressure over the western United
States has dominated weather patterns this winter, keeping
storm systems away while maintaining unusually warm
temperatures across the region. La Niña conditions in the
Pacific Ocean are partly responsible, but the upper ridge has
been further east than usual as well. That’s partly been driven
by a persistently “positive” PNA – the Pacific North American
Oscillation. The combination of the northerly jet stream
changes from La Niña plus the positive PNA – and a couple of
other patterns – are why it has been so dry.
One year after taking office, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will
return to San Diego County Thursday to continue addressing the
decades-old Tijuana sewage crisis that has plagued the South
Bay community. Since being sworn in as the 17th administrator
of the Environmental Protection Agency on January 29, 2025,
Zeldin has made the cross-border sewage issue a priority,
promising to deliver a “100% solution” to the problem that has
impacted Imperial Beach and surrounding areas for years.
… During his Thursday visit to San Diego County, Zeldin
will meet with small business owners and elected officials
impacted by the crisis as he continues efforts to address the
long-standing environmental issue.
In 2022, Governor Newsom released California’s Water Supply
Strategy, outlining how the state must adapt to a hotter, drier
future. As temperatures rise, more precipitation will be
absorbed by dry soils, consumed by plants, or evaporate —
meaning less water reaches streams, rivers, and reservoirs,
placing new strain on the state’s water supply. In October
2025, the Governor and Legislature gave the Department of Water
Resources (DWR) an important opportunity to address this
challenge: Senate Bill 72 (SB 72). SB 72 directs DWR to
modernize the California Water Plan by building a data-driven
playbook for the state’s water future.
More than 10,000 Chinook salmon made the long journey home this
year, returning from the Pacific Ocean to spawn in the
Mokelumne River—a strong sign of resilience for one of Northern
California’s most important salmon rivers. The East Bay
Municipal Utility District reports that approximately 10,500
Chinook salmon returned during the 2025 fall run. That number
is right in line with the river’s long-term average and
marks a successful season for both natural spawning and
hatchery operations. Those returns allowed EBMUD,
working alongside the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, to meet its goal of collecting and fertilizing 7.5
million salmon eggs at the Mokelumne River Hatchery below
Camanche Dam.
The world is looking for more clean water. Intense storms and
warmer weather have worsened droughts and reduced the
amount of clean water underground and in rivers and lakes
on the surface. Under pressure to provide water for
drinking and irrigation, people around the globe are trying to
figure out how to save, conserve and reuse water in a variety
of ways, including reusing treated sewage wastewater and
removing valuable salts from seawater. But for all the clean
water they may produce, those processes, as well as
water-intensive industries like mining, manufacturing and
energy production, inevitably leave behind a type of liquid
called brine: water that contains high concentrations of salt,
metals and other contaminants. I’m working on getting the water
out of that potential source, too.
California is on the cusp of adopting a sweeping plan to manage
the ecologically stressed Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a
move that Gov. Gavin Newsom deems “critical” to protecting
state water supplies but critics are calling a major
environmental setback. The state’s Bay Delta Plan, years in the
making, aims to moderate the amount of water that cities and
farms take out of rivers and creeks, from Fresno to the Oregon
border, to ensure enough is left to flow downstream to the
delta. … Last week, at three days of public hearings in
Sacramento, scores of conservationists, fishermen, delta
residents and Native Americans blasted the plan as doing too
little to rein in water users, saying struggling fish, wildlife
and water quality would not see the improvements they
need.
Arizona officials have a blunt message to other states in the
protracted fight over the Colorado River: Give up more water or
we’re going to take it from you. More than two years of
negotiations between the seven states that share the
drought-stricken Colorado River — and countless meetings,
including Interior Department officials waving the threat of
federal intervention — have failed to produce a deal about how
to share the waterway, including who must use less of it. With
less than two weeks before a last-ditch federal deadline on
Feb. 14, the states are still attempting to come up with at
least a short-term, five-year agreement.
Mexico and the United States have agreed to a plan for Mexico
to deliver the water it owes to Texas under a 1944 treaty. The
U.S. State Department and Department of Agriculture said in a
joint statement Tuesday that Mexico will deliver a minimum of
350,000 acre-feet of water per year to Texas, which is the
amount it owes annually under the water-sharing agreement.
Mexico has been behind on its deliveries of water after years
of drought, delivering only about half of the water it owes
Texas from the Rio Grande during a five year
cycle that ended in October. In exchange for water from the Rio
Grande, the United States promises water deliveries from the
Colorado River to Mexico under the treaty.
Over 60 Colorado water groups want a seat at the table to weigh
in on a historic Western Slope bid to purchase powerful water
rights tied to a small power plant on the Colorado River.
Cities, irrigation districts, hydroelectric companies and other
groups submitted filings Friday to have a say in a water court
case that will decide the future of Shoshone Power
Plant’s rights to access water. The rights are
old and large enough to shape how Colorado River water flows
around the state. A proposed change to the legal rights has
sparked concerns from big dogs in water, like Denver Water,
Colorado’s oldest water utility, over possible impacts to their
water supplies and a debate that continues decades of
west-versus-east water fights in Colorado.
Federal water managers and the local agencies they serve
usually gather every January in Reno, Nevada, to swap wish
lists, from higher dams to new reservoirs to changes to
endangered species rules. This year, at the Mid-Pacific Water
Users Conference, the focus was more basic: whether the federal
water system has enough people left to keep it running. …
President Donald Trump has made Western water a priority,
maintaining close ties with farm districts that receive federal
deliveries — including Westlands Water District — and ordering
agencies like Reclamation to move more water, faster. Yet
a year into his return to office, talk of marquee projects like
raising Shasta Dam to store and deliver more water to Central
Valley farmers (overriding longstanding environmental and
tribal opposition) was largely absent.
The Southwest Kings Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA)
held its first meeting in six months and covered a lot of
ground including setting a policy to fine landowners $1,000 a
day for not registering their wells and vowing to sue a
neighboring GSA. … [Southwest’s chair John] Vidovich also
said landowners with wells that are within 1,000 feet of
Southwest’s boundaries would be required to register those
wells with the GSA and report their pumping or face a
$1,000-per-day fine as well. … Engineering consultant
Amer Hussain said neighboring GSAs have already enacted well
registration policies and it may be easier for Southwest to ask
for that data from them instead of having farmers register
wells a second time.
A Lake Tahoe boater is facing thousands of dollars worth
of fines after an alleged violation posed a threat to golden
mussels. According to the California Department of Fish
and Wildlife, the boater “tried to skirt Lake Tahoe’s boat
inspection and found out the hard way how seriously the threat
of golden mussels is being taken.” CDFW said the Tahoe
Regional Planning Agency discovered that the boat had a
tampered inspection seal and was recently launched at Folsom
Reservoir. The boater was fined $5,000.
