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The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a massive, unresponsive, and insular bureaucracy that lacks transparency and accountability to the ultimate end users, the Ratepayers. This includes homeowners, renters (through pass through rent increases), and commercial and industrial establishments. Rather, as a wholesaler to 26 agencies and another 251 subagencies, MWD and its directors are pressured to limit its rate increase so that these public facing entities do not have to raise rates to a level that reflects the true cost of water, fearing pushback from Ratepayers. MWD and its politically appointed board accommodate these agencies by dumping the increased costs onto property owners by levying a Special Property Tax that is buried in our Secured Property Tax Bill that only comes once a year.  This may be in violation of Prop 13.

A recent CityWatch article, Metropolitan Water District’s Billion Dollar Property Tax, indicated that MWD was proposing to increase this tax to $180 for a million dollar home (0.0018% of assessed value), a more than fivefold increase from the 2024 level of $35 (0.0035%).

Appellate court justices heard arguments Tuesday in the highly watched dispute over whether the state exceeded its authority when it placed the Tulare Lake subbasin on probation last year for failing to come up with an adequate plan to protect the region’s groundwater.

Or, whether a Kings County judge erred by refusing to dismiss the case and issuing a preliminary injunction that has held probationary sanctions at bay all this time. A ruling by the 5th District Court of Appeal is expected “soon,” which could mean two months or longer.

The results are in.  California’s 446 urban water suppliers have conducted their supply and demand assessments, and 95.5% say they will have ample supplies to meet projected demand in the coming year, even if it is dry.  The remaining 4.5% who project some level of shortage have identified response actions to address and mitigate the potential shortage.

The Annual Shortage Report is a yearly stress test for water suppliers and serves as an important tool for successful and effective local water shortage contingency planning, ensuring water supply reliability and drought resiliency.  This year’s Annual Shortage Reports cover projections for the 12 months from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026.  The Department of Water Resources prepares a report summarizing the findings by September 30 and submits it to the State Water Resources Control Board.

This year, winter storms could be on the way for California, thanks to a Pacific marine heatwave that could trigger storms along the West Coast.

The Environmental Protection Agency was already reeling from massive staff cuts and dramatic shifts in priority and policy. A government shutdown raises new questions about how it can carry out its founding mission of protecting America’s health and environment with little more than skeletal staff and funding.

In President Donald Trump’s second term, the EPA has leaned hard into an agenda of deregulation and facilitating Trump’s boosting of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal to meet what he has called an energy emergency.