The federal government's Colorado River plan is here. Doesn't say the words "climate change," but for once the Trump administration is being forced to reckon with climate change — a sign of just how serious things are at Mead and Powell: www.latimes.com/environment/... via @ianjames.bsky.social

Trump administration spares Southwest from harshest water cuts in new Colorado River plan

The Trump administration has released a 10-year plan for cutting water use to prop up the Colorado River's reservoirs, which have fallen to a record low.

latimes.com

It's well understood that far too many acres of land are irrigated in California with unsustainable #groundwater and perhaps 700,000 acres will have to be fallowed. The real question is who's land is going to have to come out of production: large agribusinesses or the small family farmers. #water

California’s tightening regulations limiting groundwater pumping are proving difficult and costly for many small-scale farmers. Researchers say small growers need help to adapt. www.latimes.com/environment/...

California’s push to limit groundwater pumping could leave small farmers in the dust

According to a new report, California groundwater regulations threaten to put many small farms out of business.

latimes.com

Here for papers on innovations in wastewater compliance reporting and how they relate to performance.

NBER@nber.org · 5d ago

Investigating whether, by providing better and more timely information, the first mandatory online reporting and auditing program for wastewater discharge releases in the US improved facility compliance and environmental performance, from Gray, Shadbegian, and Wolverton www.nber.org/papers/w35525

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

Please save space in your calendar to read a paper I intend to write by ~2040 on HUD utility allowance estimations, and what they mean for the embeddedness of housing and utility "affordability" metrics and policies. Thank you. www.huduser.gov/portal/pdred...

New study finds Trump supporters were far more likely than Biden supporters to blame the L.A. fires on water management: mavensnotebook.com/2026/07/28/r... via @mavensnotebook.com

In Florida, pollution enforcement remains below historic averages amid widespread water quality issues.

Most Florida Waterways Fail Water Quality Standards as Enforcement Lags - Inside Climate News

Amid record staffing cuts, a new report finds state regulators are taking fewer enforcement actions against polluters.

insideclimatenews.org

Denying FMAGs (FEMA fire management grants) is a big deal. Especially for the kind of fire outbreak that OR has gone through the past few weeks. A troubling development and hopefully not a trend as we hit the heart of fire season.

Michael Wara@michaelwara.bsky.social · 6d ago

www.kptv.com/2026/07/29/f...

Impressive to see the Colorado legislature follow up with further implementation steps on its landmark 2023 bill (HB 1257) to test water quality in mobile home parks. leg.colorado.gov/bills/HB26-1...

That underground injection sites are observably leaking this much fracking wastewater - visible radioactive liquids laced with heavy metals - raises pretty significant questions about how reliable underground CO2 sequestration could be. CO2 is invisible and odorless. How would we even catch leaks?

In Ohio, Toxic Wastewater Is Bubbling Up Out of the Ground (Gift Article)

The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back.

nytimes.com

People cannot tell the difference between tap and fancy tap water -alternatives in blind taste tests, part 381. H/t Silvia Gonzalez. www.facebook.com/JimmyKimmelL...

341K views · 7K reactions | Can people tell the difference between Erewhon’s new $12 sacred water and a cup of hose water from our back parking lot? | Jimmy Kimmel Live

Can people tell the difference between Erewhon’s new $12 sacred water and a cup of hose water from our back parking lot?

facebook.com

Favorite manhole candidate

There's a federal plan for the Colorado River. @ianjames.bsky.social has leaked details. It's two years, and there are no mandatory cuts for the Upper Basin. www.latimes.com/environment/...

California dodges a bullet on Colorado River cuts

California, Arizona and Nevada offered to cut water use to ease the Colorado River crisis. The Trump administration is set to adopt much of their proposal.

latimes.com

Wowza. Look at this chart on wildfires in France from @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social EFFIS. Red line is cumulative area burned this year; blue line is average since 2006...

Every beat is the climate beat... my former colleagues on Europe burning www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins

Coming days are ‘absolutely critical’ for firefighters before temperatures rise again this week, officials say

theguardian.com

Squished in the middle of this story was this heartbreaking paragraph. Unconscionable.

Brian Lyman@brianlyman.bsky.social · last wk.

A lot of what-the-hell moments in this story, but building a data center in a floodplain in Louisiana is inviting the wrath of Poseidon.

During the 2025 fires, water management was uniquely blamed compared to past fires. Sharing this new UCLA+USC study released today wherein we show that political sentiment from partisan cues was by far the most powerful explanation regarding the role of water management in the 2025 LA fires.

Why is your current, and future, energy bill higher than before? Here's a reason.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2w ago

Breaking News: Federal officials acknowledged in court documents that they canceled grants to states that didn’t vote for President Trump in 2024. nyti.ms/4gRd5Kb

NEW: In a stunning admission, the Trump administration admitted in court documents that it canceled billions in energy grants to states "based solely" on politics -- and whether that state was represented by Democrats and backed Harris in 2024. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him

Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.

nytimes.com

Board packet: "This is too much to read." Executive summary: "Still too much to read." Dashboard: "I don't understand all these numbers." Red/Yellow/Green lights: "Are three lights too many?" Thumbs up/down: "I fear we're missing the nuance."

Galloway doesn’t even live in CA - he’s in Florida. I think we should have residency requirements for positions of public trust & importance. Nearly 40 million Californians, and not one more qualified to impact our UC system?

Brendan Cantwell@cantb.bsky.social · 2w ago

I quit www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

Riffing on @emilygrube.bsky.social's new journal letter here bsky.app/profile/grub..., I proceed to yell at energy and climate modelers in NN#7 and implore them to do better. www.transitiontimes.net/nn-7-a-new-c...

NN#7: A New Climate Catechism

It’s time for energy and climate modelers to start trying to tell the world what’s likely to happen, and show them how to phase out fossil fuels completely.

transitiontimes.net

Emily Grubert@gruberte.bsky.social · 2w ago

In which I yell at my favorite journal and its thoughtful, talented collection of researchers that we really need to take fossil phase-out seriously as a line of inquiry, and that we would not stand for the level of talking around it as a solution in other settings with very obvious problems:

www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/w...

Water Plants Under Fire in the Gulf Are Crucial to Civilians

Several days of airstrikes have hit water and energy plants in Kuwait, a nation that relies on desalination for 90 percent of its drinking water.

nytimes.com

I spoke to the author here but TL;DR the key point: “You can’t go by a day without seeing somebody saying how they’re going to reduce the cost of desal by 60 percent,” says Tom Pankratz, a consultant who has been working in the field since the 1980s. www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/19/o...

The world needs more fresh water. Why isn’t desalination the answer? - The Boston Globe

There is obvious demand for the technology. And solar power should be making it more economical. If only it were that simple.

bostonglobe.com

JUST PUBLISHED: The [*Open Access*] introduction for the forthcoming special issue of @urbanstudiesjournal.com on manufactured housing. Such fun to work on this with @andrewrumbach.bsky.social, Esther Sullivan & all the authors. doi.org/10.1177/0042... More to come as we approach the pub date.

Manufacturing the urban: Situating manufactured housing and manufactured home communities in urban studies and charting a course for research - Zachary Lamb, Esther Sullivan, Andrew Rumbach, 2026

Manufactured housing (MH) provides a key source of affordable housing in the United States and elsewhere, including in Canada and Australia. In this editors’ in...

doi.org

Cannot think of anything that could go wrong once the United States establishes a precedent that one country can seek reprisals for how another country affects its climate

Compare and contrast

Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 3w ago

BREAKING: Electrification Action Plan dropped. The EU just committed to doubling electrification: 46% of final energy consumption by 2040, up from 23% today, where it has sat for a decade. My rapid response analysis of the Electrification Action Plan: open.substack.com/pub/janrosen...

2026 Western U.S. snow drought approx 1-in-7 year event in current climate, 1-in-30 year event in 19th century climate, and may be a biennial event later in the 21st century, study finds. Specifics vary by region. Read more at link below, or in quoted thread: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The 2026 western US snow drought was about four times more likely due to climate change | PNAS

In the spring of 2026, anomalously low snow conditions in the western United States threatened winter recreation and water supplies. Here, we inves...

pnas.org

Adrienne Marshall@hydro-adrienne.bsky.social · 2w ago

We find that this year’s snow drought was about 4.4x more likely in our climate-changed world than it would have been in the late 1800s. Snow volume was about 25% lower than it would have been then, meaning the missing water volume was approximately equivalent to the size of Lake Mead.

UCLA Public Policy is hiring an Asst Prof in Global Public Affairs. The department, the university, the city, the weather all have my ringing endorsement. Apply to come join us! recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF11174