California Water Views

In 2024, after years of deliberation, California water officials adopted landmark rules that will guide future water use and conservation in the state. The “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” framework went into effect at the beginning of 2025 and requires compliance by 2027. The framework is intended to help preserve water supplies as climate change drives hotter, drier conditions and droughts become more frequent and longer lasting, and is expected to help save 500,000 acre-feet of water annually by 2040. That is enough to supply more than 1.4 million households ...

On January 10, 2025, Governor Newsom announced his 2025-2026 budget proposal of $322.3 billion. Unlike in 2023 and 2024, the proposal is for a balanced budget with a surplus of $363 million, although it does include $7 billion in funds from the state’s rainy day fund. The budget site includes a full combined summary, summaries of individual sections and a full detailed budget.

The budget includes reductions in funding for nearly all government agencies. The Natural Resources Agency has the biggest cut in net dollars and the second biggest cut percentage wise, with a 55.4% and ...

On October 23, 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $276 million in available funding for California water infrastructure projects. When combined with the $269 million it announced on October 8, 2024, that raises the total to $545 million announced this month.

The funding comes through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which provides for $50 billion in investments in water infrastructure throughout the country. The October 23 announcement is part of a total of $3.6 billion in available funding, which is designated to particular states ...

On September 6, 2024, EPA announced $7.5 billion in available loan funding through the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA). From that total, $6.5 billion is available through WIFIA loans and $1 billion is available through the State Water Infrastructure Financing Authority (SWIFIA). … 

On April 4, 2024, Governor Newsom and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) announced that the Bureau awarded California $15 million for the Delta-Mendota Canal floating solar project. The project, which is funded through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, marks a key step forward for ‘floating solar,’ a technology that is billed as a win-win for the energy and water sectors. … 

On April 2, 2024, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released the California Water Plan Update 2023 (CWP 2023 Update). DWR’s press release dubs the plan “A Roadmap to Water Management and Infrastructure for a Water Resilient Future.” Resiliency is one of the key focuses for the CWP 2023 Update, as its chapter on objectives is entitled the “Roadmap to Resilience.” The plan is focused on the vision that “All Californians benefit from water resources that are sustainable, resilient to climate change, and managed to achieve shared values and connections to ...

After releasing the final environmental report (EIR) for the Delta Conveyance Project on December 8, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) certified it on December 21, 2023. The certification of the final EIR is a significant step forward for the Delta Conveyance Project, a key project for the Newsom administration. It also provides the basis for legal challenges, which are all-but inevitable.

The Delta Conveyance Project is the latest in a long line of proposed conveyance projects designed to bring water from northern California to southern California. Different iterations of ...

If there is one truism in California water, it is that there is not enough of it. In part to try to help address that issue, on December 19, 2023, the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) adopted the state’s first direct potable reuse (DPR) regulations. As detailed in the State Water Board’s press release, the new regulations represent the “most advanced standards in the nation,” provide a “climate-resilient water source,” and “add millions of gallons of additional drinking water.” However, is the picture quite that rosy? … 

On January 10, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom announced his $297 billion budget proposal for 2023-2024, which includes a $22.5 billion budget deficit. Despite environmental/climate change programs facing $6 billion in cuts, Governor Newsom’s proposed budget includes relatively few negative impacts to water projects. In fact, the drought response and water resilience section, which includes the vast majority of water-related funding, only faces a cut of two percent, from $8.7 billion to $8.6 billion. That two percent reduction is the lowest of any environmental category. ...  

On December 19, 2022, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps), Sacramento District released its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Delta Conveyance Project. The Army Corps is the federal agency tasked with evaluating the Delta Conveyance Project for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. Cooperating federal agencies include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. … 

A key priority of the Newsom administration – the Delta Conveyance Project – has officially entered its next chapter. On July 22, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) released its draft environmental impact report (Draft EIR) for the Delta Conveyance Project.

The Delta Conveyance Project is DWR’s and Governor Newsom’s plan to build an underground tunnel to bring water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the State Water Project pumps near Tracy in order to reduce the risk from earthquakes and climate change to the State’s water supplies. It is intended to protect ...

On May 24, 2022, the California State Water Resources Control Board announced emergency drought restrictions resulting from Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-7-22. The regulations are the latest in a series of attempts by the state to deal with the ongoing severe drought. The regulations cover two areas: a ban on irrigating non-functional turf and a requirement that urban water suppliers implement the Level 2 demand reduction actions in their water shortage contingency plan. …

On May 12, 2022, at the conclusion of a 10-hour hearing, the California Coastal Commission voted to deny Poseidon Water’s application to site and operate a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, in what could be a fatal blow for a project that has been debated for more than 20 years.

The Coastal Commission’s vote was unanimous, 11-0, in agreeing with the staff report’s recommendation to reject Poseidon Water’s application. The staff report recommended denial “due to this project’s fundamental inconsistencies with Coastal Act and LCP policies related to coastal ...

As of December 7, 2020, water has been included as a traded commodity on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (“the Merc”). According to a recent Chicago magazine article, “Now cities and farmers can buy futures in California’s water, meaning they can hedge against (or bet on) rising water prices out west, based on the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index [ticker symbol: NQH2O], which tracks the current market price of the five largest water supplies in the state…So far, only the Golden State’s water supply is being traded; it’s sort of a test run.”

Some see this move at the ...