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 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.
… At low water levels, more air from the reservoir’s [Lake
Powell] surface can be mixed into the water, ideal conditions
for bubbles to implode with destructive force as the water
travels through tubes and turbines. And this year, the
[Colorado River] reservoir’s water level is extremely low.
Federal reports show that the dam might have to stop
hydropower generation before the end of the year to avoid
catastrophic damage caused, in part, by the
small-but-mighty bubbles. The Bureau of
Reclamation has spent millions of dollars adding protective
layers to some of the dam’s water release valves. State and
federal officials are debating how to manage around the dam’s
limitations as part of high-stakes negotiations this
year.
A state lawmaker on Wednesday paused her bill extending the
state Department of Water Resources’ water rights permit after
it got caught up in a controversy over a proposed
tunnel diverting water from Northern California to
Southern California. Assemblymember Lisa Calderon withdrew her
bill, AB 2215, from its scheduled hearing in the Senate Natural
Resources and Water Committee, according to her chief of staff
Mike Dayton. He said the committee’s proposed changes to the
bill “weren’t consistent with our intentions.” Calderon’s bill
would have given the Department of Water Resources
until 2046 to build more infrastructure to use more of its
State Water Project water rights. The State Water
Project is the massive system of pumps and aqueducts that
transports water around the state to 27 million people.
Phoenix-area cities say they want answers about plans for a
pool of water that’s stored underground as a backup during dry
times on the Colorado River. City leaders say the Arizona Water
Banking Authority is keeping them in the dark about how they
might share that water, making it hard for cities to plan for a
dryer future. The Water Bank is holding a special meeting
Tuesday morning to address some of those questions. The Water
Bank was created in 1996 to store excess Colorado River water
underground. … Now, the Colorado River is dry enough to cause
shortages, and cities say the Water Bank isn’t telling them how
much water they can expect to get back.
California is investing $7.5 million to slow the spread of
invasive golden mussels, including $6 million in one-time
funding and $1.5 million in ongoing annual support to
protect the state’s waterways and water
infrastructure. … Its tendency to rapidly
reproduce, forming dense colonies on underwater surfaces, can
clog pipes, pumps and critical water infrastructure while
disrupting local ecosystems. Its spread has raised
resulting alarm across California: over the past two months,
the Sacramento, Kern and San Joaquin counties have declared
local emergencies in response to the invasive species threat.
The money will establish five Delta-based
decontamination sites to inspect boats and equipment for
invasive mussels and remove them before they spread to
other waterways.
Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities isn’t accepting industrial
wastewater associated with data center systems until further
notice after a contractor for Meta Platforms
contaminated the city’s wastewater system, prompting
months of cleanup. The announcement was made by the
Board of Public Utilities (BOPU) on Thursday in conjunction
with naming the Meta company as the source of the initial
contamination. It also comes more than four months after the
Meta company — which is building a huge $800 million data
center in south Cheyenne — disrupted the city’s reclaimed
wastewater system with a rare bacterial contaminant. Goat
Systems LLC was in “significant noncompliance” with the city’s
industrial pretreatment regulations after discharging
wastewater contaminated with Cupriavidus gilardii.
Lookout Slough, a 3,400-acre wetland on the edge of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in central California, is ringed
with aquatic plants, pulsing with tides from San Francisco Bay,
and home to dozens of species of fish, amphibians, reptiles and
birds. Until two years ago, it was parched former farmland, cut
off from the Sacramento River’s floodplain by a 26-foot-tall
levee. This transformation, the delta’s largest tidal
restoration project, was prompted by the decline of the Delta
smelt, a fish barely as long as an index finger. Adapted to the
delta’s brackish tides over thousands of years, the smelt is
considered a strong indicator of ecological
health. … The question now is whether
restoring wetlands like Lookout Slough can revive the Delta
smelt.
… California is the top milk producer in the U.S., with more
than 1.7 million cows generating over $8 billion worth of milk,
according to the latest state tally, in 2024. But residents in
Merced County say that windfall comes at a cost that’s
difficult to quantify. Families say dairies are not required to
strictly monitor the air nearby. Instead, air quality concerns
are handled based on complaints to local agencies and
self-monitoring practices. Documentation of negative impacts to
water quality depends on when inspections occur and how dairies
report waste discharges, so incremental impacts to drinking
water remain opaque, residents complain. … Runoff from
large-scale farms “can impair both surface and ground water
beneficial uses” by producing “significant amounts of coliform,
ammonia, nitrate and total dissolved solids contamination,” the
Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board wrote in a
2019 water quality control plan.
A new UC Riverside study that examined air quality and
respiratory health in the Salton Sea shows dust storms are
creating environmental harms and inequality for families. The
Salton Sea, California’s largest inland lake, has been
shrinking as temperatures rise and water decreases. Dust from
the exposed lake bed blows inside the homes of people near the
Coachella and Imperial Valleys. UCR researchers placed air
quality monitors inside the homes of 15 mothers, who documented
their experiences through personal narratives.
… Communities around the Salton Sea have high rates of
childhood asthma that are higher than the California average.
Experts also say contaminants like pesticides and heavy metals
may be concentrated in the dust.
Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District (“CAIDD”) and
Cadiz, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDZI, CDZIP) today announced execution of
a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) for the purchase and sale
of up to 10,000 acre-feet per year (“AFY”) of new water supply
from Cadiz’s Mojave Groundwater Bank in San Bernardino County,
California. … Under the proposed terms, CAIDD would
secure rights to purchase up to 10,000 AFY of conserved
groundwater for an initial 50-year term with renewal
opportunities. Initial pricing would include a volumetric
charge of $850 per AFY (2025 dollars) plus operations,
maintenance, and pro-rated power costs for conveyance to the
Colorado River Aqueduct, and a one-time prorated capital charge
per acre-foot for dedicated pipeline capacity.
California’s Water Year runs from October 1 of the previous
calendar year through September 30. California’s “wet”
season is traditionally October 1 – April 1. The rest of
the year (and often parts of the “wet” season) is usually
dry. We can get major storms into April, but often not.
So nearly all this Water Year’s precipitation has fallen
already. … For water stored instate for California,
storage levels are about the same as last year and are pretty
good. Because the last three years have not been dry,
California retains an unusually large amount of water in its
reservoirs. … California’s 2026 water year has had a
good “wet” season overall. Neither floods nor droughts
overall. Even in statistically average years, California water
will usually be weird in places and at times. As we work
to improve water management, we need to improve our data
management, and water accounting.
From dystopian futures to record-breaking boat trips, this list
of summer reads will give any reader a master class in Western
water brought to you by over 20 of Colorado’s top water
leaders. Once the word was out that The Colorado Sun was
looking for water book recommendations, water officials and
experts leaped at the chance to share their favorites.
(Normally, when this reporter introduces herself as a
journalist, people back away slowly. So this was a refreshing
change.) They disclosed what books were on their bedside tables
and rattled off the classics, the books that anyone anywhere
who is interested in Western water needs to read. Some shared
epicly dry suggestions — i.e., dissertations or white papers,
recommended for the true water wonks — while others offered
children’s books and science fiction that blend entertainment
and real water issues. There are always more books to read, but
this list offers a starter guide for anyone interested in
Western water.
Lake Powell, a key reservoir on the Colorado River, is
shrinking toward “dead pool,” which means water won’t flow
downriver anymore — and that could in turn pinch Wyoming’s
municipal and industrial water supplies with more demand from
Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Lake Powell, on the
Utah-Arizona state line, is in dire condition, USA Today
reported. By next spring, it’s expected to fall into “minimum
power pool,” meaning having barely just enough water to
generate hydroelectric power at Glen Canyon Dam. If it
falls even farther, that could put the reservoir at
“dead pool,” or unable to generate hydroelectric
power, according to reports. That’s despite roughly 1
million acre-feet expected to be pulled from Flaming Gorge
Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah state line and sent downriver
through Wyoming to replenish Lake Powell.
The House of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
approved on July 1 the authorization of $155 million under the
latest Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA) bill to
support the Sacramento River Basin, newly elected Congressman
James Gallagher (CA-01) announced. The authorization is part of
the House Water Resource Development Act (WRDA) 2026 bill,
which operates through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’
Environmental Infrastructure program. … If the WRDA 2026
bill passes, the $155 million would support the basin’s
water and wastewater infrastructure, environmental restoration
and surface water protection. It would support
environmental restoration meant to improve drought resilience,
salmon recovery, and bird migration without increasing flood
risk.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced the appointment of Jared
Blumenfeld, former California Environmental Protection
Secretary, to the State Water Resources Control Board.
Blumenfeld served as California Environmental Protection
Secretary from 2019 to 2022. His experience also includes
serving as Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency from 2010 to 2016. Blumenfeld will succeed
former Board Member Laurel Firestone, who
departed the State Water Resources Control Board on June 18.
Firestone was first appointed February 2019. Newsom also
announced the reappointed Dorene D’Adamo as
Vice Chair of the State Water Board earlier this year.
Blumenfeld’s appointment requires state Senate confirmation.
The next phase in the state’s crackdown on over pumping in
Tulare County will be revealed July 16 in Visalia. The meeting,
which is not open to the public, will give water managers their
first glimpse at the state’s plan for correcting severe
overdraft in the Tule subbasin. It’s known as an “interim
plan” and will definitely include pumping limits and a
fee increase from $20 to $35 per acre foot pumped. The
draft interim plan won’t be released until summer 2027 and
would have to be approved by the Water Resources Control Board
later that year before going into effect. But the clock is
ticking and the July 16 meeting is the first step to
lay out the process and timeline.
… Rock glaciers are slow-moving masses of rock debris and ice
that flow downhill the same way that glaciers do, but they are
covered by a thick layer of rock and boulders that can easily
be mistaken for stable ground. There are at least 1,500
active rock glaciers across the western U.S., and
they’re important. That’s because while the icy white glaciers
people typically picture have been shrinking and even
disappearing, our new study shows that rock glaciers and their
frozen water are remaining mostly stable despite rising
temperatures. … The result is that rock glaciers
continue to provide meltwater for streams in summer as they
always have. … Because of this, streams fed by
rock glaciers have emerged as potentially critical climate
refugia – places likely to stay cooler while everything around
them warms – for cold-water wildlife in high-mountain
ecosystems.
… Earlier this year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA,
jointly offered a $5.9 million grant for tribal salmon
restoration and called for tribes to apply for the
competitive funding. … But because salmon had been
extirpated from Klamath ancestral territory for 114 years, the
federal government did not consider them a restoration tribe.
… Fortunately, the tribes’ downriver relatives had their
back; Mike Belchik, the Yurok Tribe’s senior fisheries
biologist, moved to assist. … The BIA awarded the grant
jointly between the Yurok Tribe, the Klamath Tribes, and Oregon
Fish and Wildlife. Belchik said the Yurok Tribe will act as a
pass-through, sending the money to the Klamath Tribes and
serving in an administrative capacity only.
Crews broke ground this spring on new pump stations and river
gates meant to curb Tijuana sewage flows, but two pipeline
collapses in May were a reminder of how fragile the existing
system remains, according to the latest binational progress
report. A quarterly report released this week by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Section of
the International Boundary and Water Commission outlined
construction progress, funding releases, and challenges as the
U.S. and Mexico work to address the decades-long Tijuana sewage
crisis. The EPA released a batch of previously committed
infrastructure funds after Mexico met its obligations under a
2025 agreement between the two countries — freeing Mexico to
begin construction on two new projects aimed at reducing sewage
flows into the Tijuana River.
As data centers continue to be a regional and national
hot-button issue over their use of resources compared to the
benefits they can provide to residents, Brentwood leaders are
looking for ways to ban such facilities from coming to their
city. In a joint request, Councilmembers Faye Maloney and
Jovita Mendoza are seeking to place on a future agenda an
ordinance that would prohibit the “establishment, construction,
expansion, or operation of any new data center facilities”
within the city’s limits, said Maloney. … Aside from
potential water, noise, and environmental impacts, Mendoza said
there should be better use of land to generate more jobs for
residents.
