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.
Subscribe to our weekday emails to have news delivered to your inbox at about 9 a.m. Monday through Friday except for holidays.
Some of the sites we link to may limit the number of stories you can access without subscribing.
We occasionally bold words in the text to ensure the water connection is clear.
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.
A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved
through California but not before causing at least six deaths
and dousing much of the state. Early Monday lingering
thunderstorms pose the risk of mudslides in areas of Los
Angeles county that were recently ravaged by wildfire.
… More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara
county as the storm approached Los Angeles. Parts of the Sierra
Nevada received more than a foot of snow. The weather service
said scattered rain could continue through Tuesday in the
southern part of the state. Another storm was expected to
arrive on Thursday.
Dry, dry, dry. And warm, warm, warm. That’s been the weather
story across Colorado so far this November. Colorado’s mountain
snowpack is off to a slow start this season, and the Denver
metro area still hasn’t seen flurries. Snowpack levels across
the state remain far below average, though meteorologists say
weather patterns are expected to shift in the coming days,
bringing a better chance for winter storms before the end of
the month. … According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of
the state is unusually dry, while patches of Pitkin and Eagle
counties have slipped into extreme drought.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
At least two thirds of California’s population and more than 4
million acres of California farmland rely on water delivered by
the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project,
two of the largest multipurpose water management projects in
the world. A report released this week by the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviews these
projects’ monitoring, modeling, and other scientific activities
— specifically actions designed to help protect endangered
fish. … This first report examines three actions
designed to help protect fish and offers recommendations to
strengthen those actions.
Three months ago, Santa Clara County’s largest water agency
voted to kill a $3.2 billion plan to build a huge new reservoir
in the southern part of the county near Pacheco Pass. The
Pacheco Reservoir would have been the largest new reservoir
built in the Bay Area since 1998 when Los Vaqueros Reservoir
was constructed in eastern Contra Costa County. … This week,
the district, a government agency in San Jose that provides
water to 2 million South Bay residents, approved a roadmap for
the next 25 years that combines new reservoir projects,
groundwater storage and recycled water. The price tag: $3.9
billion.
When controversial Las Vegas developer Jim Rhodes abandoned
plans for a sprawling community near the northwestern Arizona
city of Kingman nearly two decades ago, the vast swaths of land
he’d purchased were mostly surrounded by open
desert. Instead of walking away from his investment,
Rhodes applied for a group of industrial-scale agriculture
wells that could reach the largely untapped groundwater in the
Hualapai Valley Basin. … Today, more than 99% of the
cropland in the basin is owned or controlled by out-of-state
farming operations or investment funds. … More than half of
the basin’s cultivated land is tied to California-registered
companies, which collectively farm close to 13,000 acres.
Last week, more than a dozen tribes across the U.S. commented
on a new proposal by the Trump administration to let developers
obtain preliminary permits for hydropower projects on
reservations in spite of tribal opposition. This rule would
apply to projects like dams, reservoirs and pump-storage
facilities — all overseen by the independent Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, which, under a Biden-era rule, does not
issue such permits without consent. The regulator is being
asked to change course by Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The Delta Protection Commission continued its
consideration on the Certification of Consistency for the Delta
Conveyance Project. Of the 11 members present, two … recused
themselves and left prior to the beginning of discussion on the
item,” a staff report following the Thursday meeting in Hood
stated. “Two of the remaining members indicated they would
abstain.” … ”That left only seven members who would be
available to vote on (the item), when eight are required for
action. The commission evaluated its options and decided to
adjourn and continue the meeting to 10 a.m. Monday via
teleconference.”
When it comes to zebra mussels in the Colorado River system,
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Jeff Davis summed it up
this way: “We look, we find.” While Colorado’s first
detection of the highly invasive zebra mussel was in 2022,
Parks and Wildlife, alongside federal and local partners, has
ramped up testing for the species following a growing number of
finds this summer on the Western Slope. … Zebra mussels
are an invasive aquatic species notorious for their prolific
reproduction and destruction of ecosystems and
infrastructure.
When New Mexico water users convinced the federal government to
build the San Juan-Chama Project in 1962, they hoped it would
relieve stress on the Rio Grande. The pipeline from southern
Colorado to Northern New Mexico would bring water from the
Colorado River Basin to the Rio Grande Valley. But in recent
years, as Northern New Mexico has seen historic shortages on
the Rio Grande, water managers say the Colorado River has not
softened the blow. Rather, the two water sources have both
become more unreliable, linked to one another by legal and
natural systems that have turned stretches of wet river into
highways of mud and sand.
Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers say delays at the
Environmental Protection Agency are putting Americans’ drinking
water at risk, accusing the agency of withholding critical
public health information about PFAS chemicals. Rep. Chellie
Pingree, D-Maine, said the EPA has failed for months to release
a report on PFNA, a type of PFAS contaminant. PFAS, often
called “forever chemicals,” are man-made substances found in
air, groundwater and drinking water across the country.
… Pingree sent a letter last month to EPA Administrator
Lee Zeldin demanding an update, but she said the agency has not
responded.
The California Farm Water Coalition is pleased to announce the
selection of Michelle Paul as its next executive director. Ms.
Paul will replace Mike Wade, who is retiring in February from
his role as the Coalition’s executive director, a position he
has held since 1998. Ms. Paul was selected following a
comprehensive statewide search led by the Coalition’s executive
director selection committee, which considered a strong and
diverse field of candidates from across California. She will
join the Coalition in mid-January and assume full
responsibilities on March 1.
Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP has identified Riverside, San
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Ventura as the
California counties most susceptible to wildfires in 2026,
based on recent hazard mapping and federal risk
data. … According to the firm, environmental
conditions such as prolonged drought, high temperatures, low
humidity and strong winds including Santa Ana and Diablo winds
dry out vegetation and accelerate fire spread. It flags
additional factors such as dry lightning strikes, dead
vegetation, invasive plant species, extensive tree mortality
from pests and the build-up of fuel where natural fire cycles
have been suppressed.
Evacuation warnings were issued across Los Angeles County on
Thursday evening as an atmospheric river approached Southern
California, bringing with it the potential to put an early end
to fire season while also bringing fresh risks of
flooding and mudslides. Under the storm
scenario deemed most likely by forecasters, downtown L.A. would
see 2.62 inches of rain Friday morning through Sunday. … Rain
of that extent would also make this L.A.’s wettest November in
40 years. … In Sierra Nevada, snow levels are
expected to fall to around 8,000 feet above sea level
around Tahoe and in Mono County from Thursday night into Friday
morning.
Delta Caucus co-chairs, Assemblywoman Lori Wilson and Sen.
Jerry McNerney on Thursday called on the Delta Protection
Commission to file an official appeal of the certification “of
the costly and destructive Delta Tunnel Project.” “The
Legislature established the Delta Protection Commission to
‘protect, restore, and enhance the Delta ecosystem,’ so we call
on the commission to appeal the certification of the Delta
Tunnel Project because it will devastate communities, farms,
the environment, and historic and cultural resources
surrounding the largest and most important estuary on the West
Coast,” Wilson, D-Suisun City, and McNerney, D-Pleasanton, said
in a joint statement.
A late fall storm that soaked the North State and brought high
wind gust is padding rain totals for what has been a wet start
to Northern California’s water year. … November is
typically the month when Lake Shasta, the state’s
largest manmade reservoir, drops to its lowest level
for the year. But the lake’s level is trending higher so far
this year. Lake Shasta is at 106% of the historical average and
57% full, the California Department of Water Resources said.
Trinity Lake was 71% full, which is 123% of the historical
average.
Two Northern California tribes announced Wednesday that they
signed a treaty last month, committing to jointly restore the
Eel River and its fish populations. Leaders from the Round
Valley Indian Tribes in Mendocino County and the Yurok Tribe in
Del Norte and Humboldt counties met at the Eel River Canyon
Preserve in Trinity County last month to sign the “Treaty of
Friendship.” The agreement commits the tribes to restoring
the river and rebuilding its declining fish populations as
PG&E moves to decommission the Potter Valley Project
hydroelectric system’s Scott Dam in Mendocino County and Cape
Horn (also known as Van Arsdale) Dam in Lake County.
The CVP and SWP (referred to collectively as “the Projects”)
rarely deliver their full contracted amount of water. … [I]n
late 2023 USBR contracted with the National Academies of
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to form an expert
committee that could serve as an independent review for the CVP
and SWP as they operate into the future. … The three actions
chosen for the study—the Shasta Coldwater Pool Management
Action, the Old and Middle River Flow Management Action, and
the Summer-Fall Habitat Action for Delta Smelt— are perceived
as consequential for species survival and controversial for
their effects on water deliveries to contractors.
The seven Colorado River basin states, including
Wyoming, missed a Tuesday federal deadline to reach a
preliminary agreement on managing the river’s dwindling water
supply. Even so, there could be one last chance. In June, when
the Nov. 11 deadline was set for a preliminary agreement, the
Department of Interior also demanded a final agreement by
mid-February 2026. So, now representatives from the states and
federal officials are placing their bets on a consensus being
reached by then. If not, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum might
be forced to decree a new set of operating plans for the river,
regardless of what the states want.
The specter of California’s strict but confounding
conflict-of-interest law prohibiting public officials from
profiting from their own agencies came up recently in regards
to the Kern County Water Agency hiring its former board
president as its general manager. Was it OK, under California
Government Code Section 1090 for KCWA to hire Eric Averett as
its general manager though he had served as board president
while the position was being discussed for nearly four months?
A reader sent SJV Water several “advice letters” from the Fair
Political Practices Commission that seem to suggest it may not
have been OK.
Officials at the Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District on
Thursday formally unveiled plans to build a solar canopy array
and battery energy storage project at the Harmony Grove Village
Water Reclamation Facility in Escondido. The reclamation
facility runs up a power bill of about $5,000 each month and
the solar-plus-battery project will help offset the wastewater
treatment center’s energy costs. … The 302-kilowatt
solar array with 559 panels atop a canopy will generate
electricity to help run the treatment facility that recycles
more than 180,000 gallons of wastewater on a daily basis.
