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Water levels in the largest reservoir in the United States are looking a whole lot healthier after two years of voluntary conservation efforts from an array of local stakeholders in California.

SFGATE reported that after years of decline and getting perilously close to “dead pool” status — when a reservoir’s water is too low to send downstream — Lake Mead’s water levels are up 16 feet in the last two years.

California’s major reservoirs have surged to their highest levels in years, with all key water storage facilities now holding at or above 100% of historical averages for this time of year, per Newsweek.

The dramatic turnaround is welcome news for communities that have endured years of persistent drought, offering critical relief to nearly 40 million residents and vast agricultural operations.

National Integrated Drought Information System officals say wet start to California water year improves drought, but snowpack lags.

Water Year 2026 (October 1, 2025–September 20, 2026) began very differently than Water Year 2025. Drought developed in the first few months of the last water year and expanded over the region. This water year, over the course of 2 months, drought across California-Nevada has improved by 1-3 categories, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

President Trump threatened on Monday to impose an additional 5 percent tariff on Mexican goods over a long-running water dispute, reigniting diplomatic tensions that had flared earlier this year over water shortages in the borderlands.

In a social media post, Mr. Trump accused Mexico of failing to provide more than 800,000 acre-feet of water — or more than 260 billion gallons — under a 1944 treaty mediating the distribution of water from three rivers, the Rio Grande, the Colorado and the Tijuana. The president said that Mexico needed to “release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st, and the rest must come soon after.”

OceanWell’s new underwater desalination plant in Santa Monica Bay promises to install 60 pods at a depth of 400 meters by 2030, producing 227 million liters of potable water daily and reinforcing the water supply for 70 residents in western Los Angeles amid recurring drought.

Announced on August 20, 2025, the underwater power plant Water Farm 1 inaugurates the first major underwater desalination project in the United States, focused on directly transforming water from the Pacific Ocean into potable water on an industrial scale. The system will be installed in Santa Monica Bay, near Malibu, where approximately 60 modules are expected to operate at a depth of about 400 meters.