Water

A new report estimates that California’s data centers are driving increases in electricity use, water demand and pollution even as lawmakers stall on oversight.

The federal government has often set deadlines on the Colorado River, but in recent years has rarely enforced them. Negotiations among California and the six other basin states will now continue into next year, as Arizona ramps up its rhetoric and calls for a firmer hand from the Trump Administration in the talks.

Western states in the Colorado River basin are racing a federal deadline to hash out the beginnings of an agreement governing the overtapped river. As the clock ticks down, two questions loom large: Just how real is this deadline, and what does it mean for California?

One year after the discovery that golden mussels had invaded the Delta, thick colonies coat boats and piers and threaten water supplies for cities and farms. Yet the state has no specific funding or plans to tackle harms in the heart of the invasion.

The state's farmers are divided over a bill that would loosen rules protecting agricultural land. The goal of a bill proposed by Assembly Democrat Buffy Wicks is to seed solar farms on fallowed fields.

Water wonks say the proposal to speed the multibillion Delta tunnel project could rise again. ‘This is the zombie offspring of the zombie project,’ one opponent said.

California shoots pointed words at states upriver, as negotiators struggle toward sharing supplies. Without a deal, the Trump Administration will step in.

The State Water Resources Control Board advance a controversial, Newsom-backed agreement in a new proposal, which qualifies as a major development in the long-running debate about delta water use.

Water bills are climbing as utilities clean up a chemical made infamous in “Erin Brockovich.” Should lawmakers give them cover from lawsuits while work continues?

Officials are shoring up water systems infiltrated by the golden mussel. Dogs and human inspectors are checking boats at some lakes, but a patchwork of oversight leaves many lakes unprotected. “There's just too many boats and too many people out there," one warden said.