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.
A wastewater spill that spurred warnings to stay out of the
Russian River this week after a storm drenched Sonoma County
was stopped Thursday morning, officials said. Tuesday’s heavy
rainfall overwhelmed a local wastewater treatment facility, the
Russian River Treatment Plant in Guerneville, which received
flows at a rate of around 4 million gallons per day — nearly
six times its average dry-weather design of 710,000 gallons.
With no additional storage available, millions of gallons of
untreated wastewater traveled roughly a quarter-mile through a
forested redwood grove before entering the mainstem of the
river. … The spill was officially stopped at 6:50 a.m.
Thursday.
Farmers in two of Southern California’s ag-centric irrigation
districts have long been playing their part to slow the decline
in the Colorado River’s system supply. They do this while
working with Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
to provide water to 19 million urban residents. … Through a
grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
(Blythe farmer Grant) Chaffin installed a Rubicon water system
that tightly measures and controls his ditch deliveries from
the main Palo Verde Irrigation District Canal to his home ranch
with its 1,600 acres. He drastically reduced water deliveries
to his crops, … Western farmers are following suit and
have been for some time. Between 1984 and 2013, pressurized
irrigation usage doubled across 17 states.
Through a densely forested slope on the west side of Dutch Bill
Creek, upstream of its confluence with the Russian River, a
dirt road zigzags skyward through the redwoods. Once used by
loggers to extract the watershed’s timber, the road leads past
marks of the lumbering era: a coil of rusted cable strewn in
the ferns, deeply eroded stream channels, and countless redwood
stumps uphill and down. But the din of logging has
vanished from this land. Today, the steep road is a multiuse
trail and the recovering forest is protected, part of Sonoma
County’s Monte Rio Redwoods Regional Park and Open Space
Preserve. Opened in 2020, Monte Rio quadrupled in size last
summer with the purchase of 1,517 acres of mostly second-growth
redwoods and mixed woodland.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority reports that the region has
approximately 11 years’ worth of water resources saved. Yet,
conservation efforts persist as people continue to remove and
replace grass under Assembly Bill 356. The bill, passed in
2021, targets non-functional turf—grass that provides no
recreational benefit. … Laura McSwain, founder and president
of the Water Fairness Coalition, expressed concerns about the
environmental impact of these efforts. … [Bronson Mack
from the Southern Nevada Water Authority] highlighted that
conservation efforts have reduced Colorado
River water consumption by more than 35%.
To get in top shape for the 2034 Winter Games, state officials
say the drying Great Salt Lake needs enough additional water
each year to fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
… The lake has shrunk after years of drought, climate
change and redirection of water for farming and other uses,
reaching a record low in 2022. It made some recovery before
dropping back down to end 2025 at its third-lowest level since
1903. Agriculture is the biggest consumer of water from the
Great Salt Lake Basin, at 65%, the report says, followed by
municipal and industrial uses at 26.8% and mineral extraction
at 5.7%.
The Trump administration on Wednesday renewed a streamlined
permit program for oil pipelines, highways and other projects
that disturb wetlands and streams, while making data centers
eligible as well. The Army Corps of Engineers finalized for the
next five years its nationwide permit program, which allows
infrastructure purported to have minimal adverse effects on
water quality to get faster approvals under the Clean
Water Act. … In addition to allowing data centers to
qualify for the permits, the agency added a new
category for environmental projects that help fish pass through
dams.
In a decision that could complicate Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to
build a giant water tunnel and remake California’s water
system, a state appeals court has rejected the state’s plan for
financing the project. The 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled
against the state Department of Water Resources’ plan to issue
billions of dollars in bonds to build the 45-mile tunnel
beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. … If the
appeals court decision stands and the ongoing case doesn’t
bring a different conclusion, it might lead the Newsom
administration to revise its plan for financing the project.
Officials could also petition for the California Supreme Court
to hear the case.
Much of the western U.S. has started 2026 in the midst of a
snow drought. That might sound surprising, given the record
precipitation from atmospheric rivers hitting the region in
recent weeks, but those storms were actually part of the
problem. … A region can be in a snow drought during
times of normal or even above-normal precipitation if
temperatures are warm enough that precipitation falls as rain
when snow would normally be expected. This form of snow drought
– known as a warm snow drought – is becoming more prevalent as
the climate warms, and it’s what parts of the West have been
seeing so far this winter.
With months still left of winter, California’s major reservoirs
are holding about 129 percent of historical water levels for
this time of year. Officials with the state’s Department of
Water Resources say that’s welcome news after years of drought,
but it doesn’t mean California’s water challenges are
completely over. … Above average reservoir levels give
water managers more flexibility as they head into warmer months
and irrigation season, when demand rises and rain typically
fades. It also reduces the immediate risk of shortages for
farms, cities, and ecosystems.
Are you an emerging leader passionate about shaping the future
of the Colorado River Basin? If so, consider applying for our
2026 Colorado
River Water Leaders program to deepen your
knowledge of the iconic Southwest river, build leadership
skills and develop policy ideas with a cohort to improve
management of the region’s most crucial natural resource.
Applications are due Jan. 26, 2024 and you can find
application
materials here along with mandatory program dates.
Registration is also open for our Water
101 Workshop – The Basics & Beyond. Join us March
26 for this once-a-year primer on California’s most precious
natural resource detailing the history, geography, and legal
and political facets of water in California.
Over 10,000 feet above sea level in Sequoia and Kings National
Parks dozens of weather station towers are sprinkled amongst a
forest of towering trees. These towers house antennas and
sensors designed to collect valuable water
data used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Sacramento District and many of its partners. Though these
stations are built to withstand extreme weather, there comes a
time — about every 50 years or so — when the stations need a
little more than routine annual maintenance. This was the
case for two USACE-operated weather stations that were rebuilt
in 2025: Upper Tyndall near Mt Whitney, in the Kern River
watershed, and Mitchell Meadow near Cedar Grove, California, in
the Kings River watershed.
Water recycling treats wastewater so it can be used for
drinking water, farming, housing, and industry. Communities
across the U.S. also turn to water recycling to increase
existing water supplies. The Bureau of Reclamation selected 5
projects in Southern California and Utah to receive grants
worth about $308 million for developing water recycling
projects. Projects will serve rural, suburban, and urban
communities. Agency officials identified ways to address
challenges they had implementing the initial grant program. We
recommended the Bureau document the experience so that Congress
can improve the program if it is revised or reauthorized.
One year after the January 2025 fires devastated communities
across Los Angeles, the region is still reckoning with how its
infrastructure performed and whether it should be modified to
perform under increasingly extreme conditions. The anniversary
has sharpened an urgent policy question with far-reaching
consequences: as urban wildfires become more frequent and
severe, what role can water systems realistically play in
protecting lives, supporting emergency response, and guiding
resilient rebuilding? A new UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
publication, Water Systems’ Wildfire Fighting Capacities and
Expectations: Workshop Synthesis Report, begins to answer this
question.
With farmland prices sagging and new irrigation rules coming,
diversified farmer Michael Vander Dussen didn’t hesitate to
spend $1.4 million for 321 acres in west Fresno County, as an
insurance policy of sorts. Vander Dussen admits he isn’t
as interested in the land as much as its access to water. He
recently planted a field of pistachio trees nearby, and he
wants to make sure they survive. … Vander Dussen said
both properties are in the same GSA, groundwater sustainability
agency. And he intends to fallow a portion of the new property
that is located west of Raisin City and south of Kerman.
… The Fresno Bee has started tracking these types of
agriculture land sales using an AI tool that we developed to
more efficiently share this news with you.
Residents of a Green Valley neighborhood are voicing their
concerns over plans to remove grass from their community park,
a move driven by Assembly Bill 356 and the Southern Nevada
Water Authority’s (SNWA) efforts to conserve water by
eliminating nonfunctional turf. The SNWA defines nonfunctional
turf as irrigated grass that does not provide functional use.
However, neighbors near Wingbrook Avenue argue that the grass
in their park is functional. … The SNWA asserts that
removing nonfunctional turf will help reduce Colorado River
consumption and protect the community’s water supply.
Since Modesto Irrigation Director Larry Byrd voted to squash an
investigation into himself last month, some, including experts,
have wondered how he was allowed to do that. … In
September, MID launched an investigation after Byrd was
publicly accused of either stealing or misusing the district’s
canal water. The investigation found that Byrd’s previous
answers to some of the accusations against him were impossible.
However, the report, scientific and data-reliant, failed to
clearly implicate Byrd. But had Byrd recused himself, the
investigation would have continued.
Top water officials from the seven Colorado River Basin states
will return to the negotiating table next week, reportedly in
sequestered fashion, to try to make headway over how to cut
water use. Starting Monday, the negotiators will meet for four
days in Salt Lake City, sources said, and two people familiar
with the long-stalled talks say attendance will be sharply or
at least unusually limited. Federal officials are convening the
seven-state meeting after a missed deadline in November in the
long stalemate over how to deal with the oversubscribed,
dwindling river. The U.S. Interior Department, which
typically runs the negotiating sessions, has told the states it
wants an agreement among them by Feb. 14.
As of Tuesday, California’s six largest mega reservoirs are 75%
full, holding 26% of their normal historical levels for this
date. … For the mega reservoirs, that is a sweet spot;
enough room to catch much more water for the remaining three
months of wet season. If there’s too much rain, they can
release water to prevent dangerous overflow, as we saw with
Lake Oroville back in February 2017. In fact, Oroville is
already releasing water right now. California farmers get
about 70% of their water from dams and reservoirs.
Reactions are pouring in from national, state and local leaders
following the death of U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa. … U.S.
Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, described LaMalfa as a close
friend and colleague, pointing to years of
collaboration on water infrastructure investments and
watershed protections in the Sacramento Valley. … It
also puts into question congressional influence over the Potter
Valley Project. LaMalfa was an outspoken critic of the
proposed dismantling of project, but opposed retaining the
Scott and Cape Horn dams without a replacement plan. He only
recently began speaking out more about the project, given he
was hoping to earn the vote of the Mendocino County communities
directly impacted by it.
Scientists at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory were
busier than ever this season — even before receiving over 4
feet of snow around Christmas. The modest research
station, located in a forested area a few miles outside
Truckee, meticulously collects snowfall measurements at Donner
Summit, continuing a practice that began nearly 150 years ago.
These records make for one of the world’s longest running snow
datasets, providing important insights into long-term changes
to the Sierra snowpack, a cornerstone of California’s
water supply.
