For over 30 years, I’ve been a climate scientist who has focused intensely on the causes and consequences of drought and climate change. I’ve done my research all over the planet, but my No. 1 focus has been on interactions of drought and climate change in the Southwest United States and on how drought and climate change are impacting the Colorado River. Seven states in the U.S. and Mexico depend on the Colorado River for water, yet I worry most about one state: Arizona.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-26 11:12:162021-10-26 11:16:36Opinion: The Southwest Must Fight for its Water and its Future
When you’ve been coming to the same place for decades, it’s easy to notice changes. On this ranch near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the tell-tale signs of drought are everywhere. Todd Hagenbuch stands beside a silent, dusty creek bed, where golden grasses and scrub are beginning to reclaim the thin channel.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-26 11:11:552021-10-26 11:16:42The West Needs a Lot of Snow to Escape Drought. This Year, That’s Unlikely
Most Marin County residents will be prohibited from turning on their sprinklers and drip irrigation systems under new drought restrictions starting in December.
The Marin Municipal Water District board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance that bans residents from using outdoor irrigation systems including overhead sprinklers and drip irrigation from Dec. 1 through May 31. Hand spot watering using a hose and spray nozzle or a watering can is still allowed.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-26 11:10:302021-10-26 11:16:51Marin Municipal Water District Tightens Usage Restrictions
Eight white shipping containers, instruments spouting from the tops of some and a generator humming away in another, sit in the East River valley, on the outskirts of this mountain town, pulling data out of the air.
The containers, a “mobile atmospheric observatory,” will gather bits of information over the next two years about the winds and clouds and rain and snow and heat and cold above the silvery and serpentine waterway as it slides past the gray granite dome of Gothic Mountain on its way to the Colorado River.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-26 11:07:032021-10-26 11:07:03From Sky to Bedrock, Researchers Near Crested Butte Are Resetting What We Know About Water in the West
The Water News Network was awarded first place as the Best Public Service or Consumer Advocacy Website in the 48th annual San Diego Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. It’s the fourth consecutive year the WNN website has won first place in that category. The award was announced during a virtual ceremony on October 25. Last year the California Public Information Officers Organization, or CAPIO, named the WNN the “Best Website” among California public agencies.
Water News Network website features original content
San Diego County Water Authority public affairs staffers Ed Joyce and Kimberlyn Velasquez also were recognized with awards for their work on the Water News Network. Velasquez was awarded second place for Photography/Video in the Feature-Light Subject category for her video, “Hydroelectric and Pressure Control Facility Upgrades.” Joyce received a second place in the Series-Light Subject category for the WNN series, “Water Utility Hero of the Week” and a third place in the Environment category for his WNN original story, “La Niña and California’s New Water Year.”
In only its fourth year of operation, the Water News Network is viewed as a reliable source of factual information upholding the standards of journalism to benefit the Water Authority, its 24 member agencies, its stakeholders, and the residents of San Diego County.
The San Diego Press Club honors the region’s best communicators in media each year at the Excellence in Journalism Awards. The presentation of awards was held virtually at the San Diego Automotive Museum on October 25. More than 500 awards in 130 categories and 10 divisions were awarded to San Diego’s reporters, writers, artists, photographers, videographers and public relations professionals. College media were also honored.
The award entries were judged by members of 15 journalism professional organizations from around the country, including press clubs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Rochester, Florida, Cleveland, Orange County, Milwaukee, Tulsa and Alaska, according to the San Diego Press Club.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SD-Press-Club-Awards-primary.jpg450845Mike Leehttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngMike Lee2021-10-26 10:23:042021-10-26 13:20:35Water News Network is Best Public Website for 4th Consecutive Year
San Diegans could be forgiven for not knowing how seriously to take California’s current drought.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency last week, reiterating a desire that urban water users from San Diego to Sacramento voluntarily cut consumption by 15 percent. That would bring water use back down to roughly where it was in 2016, after then-Gov. Jerry Brown issued the state’s first-ever mandatory drought restrictions.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-25 10:51:082021-10-25 10:52:34California May Soon Impose New Water Restrictions. Here’s What That Means in San Diego.
A massive storm barreled toward Southern California on Monday after flooding highways, toppling trees, cutting power and causing rock slides and mud flows in areas burned bare by wildfires across the northern half of the state.
Drenching rains and strong winds accompanied the weekend arrival of an atmospheric river — a long plume of Pacific moisture — into the drought-stricken state.
Rainfall records were shattered and heavy snow pounded high elevations of the Sierra Nevada. The National Weather Service issued numerous flash flood warnings.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Mike Leehttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngMike Lee2021-10-25 10:50:462021-10-25 10:52:45Drought-Stricken California Pounded by Massive Storm
Last Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended and expanded his declaration of a drought emergency, just as the first in a series of storms rolled in from the Pacific to give California a much-needed respite.
Of course, it was just coincidence, one that reminds us of the fickle nature of the state’s water supply, dependent as it is on a few wet months each year. We’ll need an old-fashioned wet winter, with soaking rains and heavy snowfalls, to truly get some relief.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-25 10:49:422021-10-25 10:52:24Opinion: It’s Time to Get Serious About Water Crisis
This past week, California declared a statewide drought emergency. It follows the first-ever federal shortage declaration on the Colorado River, triggering cuts to water supplies in the Southwest. The Colorado is the lifeblood of the region. It waters some of the country’s fastest-growing cities, nourishes some of our most fertile fields and powers $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity. The river runs more than 1,400 miles, from headwaters in the Rockies to its delta in northern Mexico where it ends in a trickle. Seven states and 30 Native American tribes lie in the Colorado River Basin. Lately, the river has been running dry due to the historically severe drought.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-25 10:49:322021-10-25 10:53:09Southwest States Facing Tough Choices About Water as Colorado River Diminishes
Cutting water use became a bit of a competition for retiree John Diniakos and his wife Merrilyn Joyce after the city mandated a 40% water restriction back in June.
Wearing a faded green collared shirt tucked into equally worn blue jeans, Diniakos said he now limits his showers to “once every other day, sometimes every three days.”
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.png00Chelsea Camposhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/WNN-Horizontal-White-Blue2.pngChelsea Campos2021-10-25 10:48:192021-10-25 10:52:56Healdsburg Cut its Water Use in Half. What’s in the City’s Secret, Water-Saving Sauce?
