"It’s not easy enforcing water regulations in the West. Just ask the officials in California who have been trying for almost a decade to penalize a man who took water from the river system that feeds San Francisco and bottled it for sale to stores like Starbucks."

"California water agencies that serve 27 million people will get just 5% of what they requested from the state to start 2023, water officials announced Thursday."

"The canvassers are backed by the oil industry in its quest to stop a new law that bans wells near residential areas and imposes new environmental controls. If petition circulators succeed in gathering enough signatures, the law would be blocked until the 2024 election."

"The federal government said Monday it will spend $250 million over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work around a drying Southern California lake that’s fed by the depleted Colorado River."

"California’s last nuclear power plant received a $1.1 billion federal grant on Monday as the state seeks to extend the plant’s operations — currently set to end in 2025 — to meet electricity demand at a time of intensifying climate events."

"In a decision that sheds harsh light on the state’s commitment to environmental justice amid growing drought anxiety, the California Coastal Commission has granted conditional approval to a controversial Monterey Bay desalination project that even the commission’s own staff said would unfairly burden a historically underserved community."

"U.S. regulators approved a plan Thursday to demolish four dams on a California river and open up hundreds of miles of salmon habitat that would be the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world when it goes forward."

"The largest dam demolition and river restoration plan in the world could be close to reality Thursday as U.S. regulators vote on a plan to remove four aging hydro-electric structures, reopening hundreds of miles of California river habitat to imperiled salmon."

"As climate change continues to transform California’s landscape in staggering and often irreversible ways, researchers have zeroed in on yet another casualty of the shift: the forests of the southern Sierra Nevada."

"Stream rehabilitation and limits on water diversions saved a crucial feeding stop for migratory birds. The lake is now an inspiration for efforts to heal degraded and warming ecosystems around the world."

"LEE VINING, Calif.—When Rose Nelson camped along lower Rush Creek in the summer of 2017, the water was flowing as high and fast as anyone could remember. The rumble and roar of the creek, she said, was the joyful sound of nature healing.