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Our Water System: What a Waste

AMERICA has a water problem. To put it simply, the national network for providing safe, clean water is falling apart.

This state of affairs, which is the focus of a summit meeting on Tuesday at the White House, threatens more than our drinking water supplies. Water is used in every sector of industry, grows our food, affects our health and props up our energy system. The price of this neglect will be high. In Flint, Mich., the mayor has estimated that it will cost as much as $1.5 billion to fix or replace lead pipes.

Will the World’s Next Wars be Fought Over Water?

California’s ongoing drought is one sign that we have entered some uncharted and uncomfortable territory. Of the fears that have risen alongside a warming planet, perhaps none have attracted more attention than the “water wars” hypothesis.

This hypothesis says that increased water shortages around the world will lead to war between states. It goes something like this: as water is central to all human activities, including food production, no state can allow its water resources to be compromised. Therefore, in a world of squeezed water supply, states should be willing to go to war to protect their access to water. At its core, the “water wars” hypothesis expresses our deepest anxieties about a drought-laden future, wherein desperately thirsty societies take up arms against one another.

El Niño Didn’t Bring the Winter Many Wanted

Despite predictions of winter coming in like Godzilla across California, the season didn’t have the claws and teeth that some forecasters expected.

Snow and rainfall was heavier than average this winter — which ended on Saturday — but not by much, a disappointment to some considering the season had a strong El Niño weather pattern. That phenomenon, caused by warmer-than-average water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, has the potential to help generate a wet winter for much of California.

Valley Farmers Respond to Obama’s Drought-Relief Plan

President Barack Obama announced he is looking to improve drought relief before he leaves office.

But a local farmer who met with the President two years ago says the issues Obama is looking to hit is not going to help growers get access to the water they need. Los Banos almond and melon farmer Joe Del Bosque met with President Obama in the Central Valley about the challenges he and other farmers are facing during the drought.

 

Bureau Increases Water Releases from Lake Shasta

After receiving nearly 5 feet of rain since October, there is too much water in Lake Shasta, according to the agency that manages Shasta Dam.

After four years of drought, the lake has finally reached levels not seen in five years, according to Shane Hunt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. But bureau officials, worried about the high inflow into the lake from recent heavy rains, have also had to increase the amount of water coming out of Shasta and Keswick dams to reduce the chances of downstream flooding.

White House Water Summit Highlights Israeli/California Innovation

The White House announced Tuesday new steps and billions of dollars in private money to help solve California’s drought.

The focus at Tuesday’s “Water Summit” was on developing new technology and innovation to solve the water crisis in California and improve drought resiliency across the country. More than 200 experts, scientists, policy makers and high tech innovators attended the summit at the White House which coincided with World Water Day.

NOAA Creating Real-Time Data on Nation’s Water Supply

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will release a new national model that will work 20 times faster than the existing model to bring real-time data on the country’s water supply.

Feds: Climate Change to Impact Western Water Trends

Climate change will hasten existing water supply concerns in the Western United States, the Interior Department concluded in a report released Tuesday.

A warming climate is excepted to bring higher temperatures and changes to precipitation, snowpack and water flow throughout the West, the report found. Officials said the threat highlights the need for “collaborative strategies acres each river basin” in the west to protect water supplies there.

 

Could Harvesting Fog Help Solve the World’s Water Crisis?

March 22nd marks the twenty-third annual observance of World Water Day, an initiative overseen by U.N.-Water, which bills itself as “the United Nations inter-agency mechanism on all freshwater related issues.” It also marks the first anniversary of an ambitious international collaboration between Dar Si Hmad, a Moroccan N.G.O., and several German partner organizations to bring potable water to the Aït Baâmrane tribal region of southwest Morocco using a technology called CloudFisher. Aït Baâmrane borders the Western Sahara; like the Atacama, it is an area marked by centuries of desertification.

OPINION: California’s High Water Should be Captured

The Sacramento River, by far the state’s most important waterway, has been running high, fast and dirty in recent days.

Upstream reservoirs on the Sacramento and its two major tributaries, the American and Feather rivers, have been increasing releases to make room for water from melting snow later in the spring. California’s drought may not be officially over, but what’s been happening during the winter, thanks to the El Niño ocean phenomena, is a far cry from years of severe water shortages that Californians have been enduring.