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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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.
For the first time in 70 years, adult Chinook salmon have been
spotted swimming the 86 vertical feet needed to return to
Alameda Creek in lower Niles Canyon – and it could be a turning
point in the decades-long effort to restore the East Bay’s
watersheds. … Since the beginning of November,
volunteers from the nonprofit group Alameda Creek Alliance —
which has worked to remove dams and install fish ladders since
1997 — have recorded nearly a dozen specimens of Chinook
Salmon. These sightings come just weeks after PG&E and the
nonprofit CalTrout finished a $15 million project to remove a
gas pipeline that was the last barrier impeding fish migration
upstream.
… While dry weather continues in California, high clouds from
the distant storms will dot the sky from San Francisco to
Sacramento, creating ideal conditions for colorful sunrises and
sunsets Thursday and Friday. A big high-pressure system
blocking storms from hitting California is steering them toward
the Pacific Northwest. … California’s Del Norte and
Humboldt counties could get hit with passing showers from the
storms, but rainfall totals are predicted to remain light.
… Atmospheric rivers hitting the Pacific Northwest leave
Northern California on the warm side of the moist air mass, and
temperatures from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe could be 10
degrees or more above normal next week.
Other weather and water supply news around the West:
Dr. Paula Stigler Granados, a researcher from San Diego State
University, says “without a doubt” pollution in the Tijuana
River Valley is making people sick. Her comments are based on
findings from an online survey being conducted by her and other
scientists who are studying the effects of raw sewage and other
contamination on those who live along the Tijuana River Valley,
which is polluted by effluent and chemicals that flow in from
south of the border. Studies have shown that contaminated water
that splashes on rocks or is churned by the surf in the ocean
releases dangerous gases such as hydrogen sulfide into the air.
… It’s just the latest phase in a drought that has crushed
the Southwest over the last two and a half decades: the driest
period the region has seen in 1,200 years. Even the
lashing rains of the atmospheric rivers that have swept over
the Southwest in recent winters have done little to alleviate
the trend. Drought, it seems, is here to stay for many more
years. In fact, the current dry spell could last another two
decades, according to a paper recently published in Nature. The
results of their analysis, which relied on the data of over 500
climate simulations produced by world-leading research
institutions, rewrite our understanding of one of the key
climate systems controlling weather in the western United
States.
ASCE [American Society of Civil Engineers] Region 9 released
the 2025 Report Card for California’s Infrastructure, assigning
the state an overall grade of C-, unchanged from 2019 and below
the national grade of C. The report evaluated 17 infrastructure
categories and found that while six sectors improved,
several—including dams, drinking water, schools, and
stormwater—received lower marks than in the previous
assessment. Stormwater infrastructure was graded D, reflecting
persistent challenges with aging systems, climate-driven
extreme weather, and funding gaps.
The State Water Resources Control Board today announced six new
appointees and three re-appointments to the Safe and Affordable
Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) Advisory Group. The
advisory group, which meets quarterly, consists of volunteers
who provide local perspectives to the State Water Board as it
works to improve access to safe drinking water in
disadvantaged communities throughout the state. The
new and re-appointees join ten continuing members, all with
diverse drinking water backgrounds and experiences.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) today
presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to California Farm Water
Coalition Executive Director Mike Wade. Presented during ACWA’s
2025 Fall Conference & Expo in San Diego, the award recognizes
individuals who have made remarkable and lasting contributions
to California water. Mike Wade has served as the Executive
Director of the California Farm Water Coalition since 1998,
educating the public about the critical connection between farm
water and the state’s food supply. He has also led the
Agricultural Water Management Council and serves on ACWA’s
Communications Committee.
The Trump administration plans to weaken environmental
protections for threatened fish in California’s
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and pump
more water to Central Valley farmlands, according to letters
obtained by the Los Angeles Times. … The U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation recently notified California agencies that it plans
to pump more water out of the delta into the southbound
aqueducts of the federally operated Central Valley Project. …
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote that it is
concerned about weakened protections for winter-run and
spring-run chinook salmon, steelhead trout, delta smelt and
longfin smelt.
The San Joaquin Basin faces significant water management
challenges due to decades of groundwater overdraft and severe
floods. According to the Department of Water Resources, their
newly released San Joaquin Basin Flood-MAR Watershed Studies
highlight strategies to address these issues across several
watersheds, including Calaveras, Stanislaus and
Tuolumne. The studies emphasize capturing and storing
floodwater underground, known as Flood-Managed Aquifer
Recharge, as a key strategy. This approach aims to transform
extreme weather events into opportunities to replenish
groundwater and support ecosystems.
The holiday season in the Kaweah subbasin got a little more
jolly thanks to its formal removal from the state’s groundwater
enforcement process on Tuesday. The state Water Resources
Control Board passed a resolution at its Dec. 2 meeting that
officially ended the threat of state intervention for the
Kaweah subbasin, which covers the northern part of Tulare
County’s flatlands and a portion of Kings County. It will
continue to work under Department of Water Resources oversight
to implement plans to reduce excessive groundwater pumping.
The Imperial Irrigation District (IID) on Dec. 2 announced its
transition from the Salton Sea Authority to the State of
California’s newly established Salton Sea Conservancy. IID’s
transition in participation from the Salton Sea Authority to
the Conservancy will strengthen alignment among state and
federal agencies and facilitate project operations and
management. This next step reflects a natural evolution of
IID’s long-standing leadership in Salton Sea progress that has
led from studies to planning to on-the-ground projects, along
with ongoing efforts to restore habitat and address regional
air quality concerns.
Amazon Web Services has pulled out of its long-planned role as
future operator of the Project Blue data center complex on the
Tucson area’s far southeast side, three sources told the Star.
Amazon has left the embattled project because its operations
aren’t compatible with the project’s recently announced plans
to use air cooling instead of water cooling of the data
centers’ servers. … Project Blue officials had pledged
to build a $100 million pipeline to deliver reclaimed water to
the data centers. But outside critics said the city would be
unable to effectively enforce those and other water-related
requirements for the project, including a commitment by the
company to be “water positive.”
Congressman Ken Calvert introduced the Agua Caliente Band of
Cahuilla Indians Water Rights Settlement Act, or H.R. 5935, on
Monday. … The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians
Water Rights Settlement Act ratifies that the Tribe has a
federally reserved water right up to 20,000 acre-feet per year
of groundwater from the Indio Subbasin that is
held in trust by the U.S. for the Tribe and individual
allottees. The Tribe would also have surface water
rights in Tahquitz Creek, Andreas Creek, and
Whitewater Ranch, held in trust by the U.S.
Alter Terra, a binational environmental group, is sounding the
alarm about the need to dredge the Tijuana River channel just
inside U.S. territory to avoid massive flooding near and around
the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The group says the floor of the
channel has risen by 10 feet over the years, meaning it will
take less water for the river to crest over its levees.
… The sediment is made up of sludge from raw sewage,
dirt from construction sites, soil from Tijuana hillsides and
other materials that come in from Mexico. … The other
option is to raise the levees, which requires congressional
approval and major funding.
The year’s first allocation from California’s massive water
storage and delivery system has been set at just 10 percent of
requested supplies, officials with the state Department of
Water Resources announced Monday. DWR operates the
State Water Project, which delivers water to
29 public water agencies that serve an estimated 27 million
people and 750,000 acres of farmland throughout the
state. DWR is required to set its initial annual water
allocation by Dec. 1 every year and the size of the allocation
is typically fairly small at first. As the rainy season
develops, however, if the state sees an increase in rain and
snowfall totals, water allocations could potentially increase
every month.
Governor Gavin Newsom has made significant strides in securing
and enhancing water supplies, including improving the state’s
ability to capture stormwater. Fortified by state investment to
strengthen and expand California’s local water infrastructure,
eight major, state-funded projects completed or broke ground
across California this fall—including water recycling,
wastewater treatment and desalination facilities—that benefit
over 1 million people. Collectively, the projects add about 2.9
billion gallons annually to the state’s water supplies, enough
water for roughly 20,000 homes per year.
Colorado River water negotiations are ongoing as the basin
states now face a Feb. 14 deadline to submit a final agreement
to the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of
Reclamation. At the Western Governors Association winter
meeting in Paradise Valley, Gov. Katie Hobbs accused the upper
basin states of running out the clock by not putting proposals
on the table as the previous Nov. 11 deadline passed without a
deal. … In the meantime, Hobbs said she will continue to
fight for the water Arizona needs. … “Our users will not
accept a deal where we are waiving our rights to the water that
the upper basin owes us,” Hobbs said.
A new study shows that during drought, it’s not how hot or how
dry it is that determines gas emissions from plants—but how
quickly conditions change. This discovery reshapes our
understanding of the relationship between drought,
vegetation, and air pollution. The research …
reveals a striking phenomenon: when the weather shifts
rapidly—for example, a sharp increase in humidity or a sudden
drop in temperature—vegetation responds immediately by changing
the rate at which it emits naturally occurring biogenic
volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) into the air. … The paper
is published in the journal Science of The Total Environment.
Residents who frequent Loveland Reservoir are again raising
alarms about water being drained from the area’s largest public
open-space reservoir. The concerns come three years after the
reservoir was lowered to deadpool levels, killing off the fish
population and severely impacting
recreation. … Anglers say the fish population was
just beginning to recover from the previous draining.
… Residents also worry the lower water levels will
affect firefighting resources. … A spokesperson for
Sweetwater Authority confirmed the agency is conducting
controlled water transfers to “continue providing safe and
reliable water to our South Bay ratepayers.”
A gadget capable of extracting evaporation from tomato pulp is
producing 120,000 gallons a day of “new water” clean enough to
drink in Los Banos in Merced County. The “water harvesting”
unit was developed by Australian company Botanical Water
Technologies, which moved to the United States around five
years ago. The Ingomar Packing Company in Los Banos processes
tomato products such as tomato paste and diced tomatoes. …
Greg Pruett, Ingomar CEO, says in a promotional video about the
program that the company had a large volume of condensate water
from the tomatoes that was “…not being used in a valuable way.”
So when it learned about Botanical and its work extracting and
purifying such water, it was a good fit.
