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Deliveries to Be Cut as Lake Powell Approaches Crisis Level

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Sunby Jessica Hill

Lake Mead’s “bathtub ring” is set to become even more pronounced this year.

The lingering drought is the overriding reason that the lake’s water level will fall again in 2022, but it’s also because less water will be released upstream on the Colorado River from Lake Powell.

This month, the seven Colorado River Basin States — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — agreed with federal officials’ recommendations to institute a 480,000 acre-foot reduction from Glen Canyon Dam on Lake Powell to reduce the risk of the lake declining below 3,490 feet.

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Governor Declares Drought in Four More Oregon Counties

/in , /by /KOIN-TV by Amanda Arden

It’s been a rainy April, but prolonged drought is still impacting parts of Oregon. On Monday, Gov. Kate Brown issued drought declarations for four Oregon counties.

Deschutes, Grant, Lake and Malheur counties are the latest where the governor has declared a drought. These counties join Gilliam, Morrow, Jefferson, Crook, Harney, Klamath and Jackson counties, for which the governor declared a drought earlier in 2022.

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Irrigation Districts Plan for Another Dry Year as Drought Mars Rio Grande

/in , /by /El Paso Timesby Martha Pskowski

Water districts in El Paso and southern New Mexico will start releasing irrigation water in June, as drought continues to pummel the Rio Grande Basin.

Elephant Butte Reservoir will open its gates June 1, releasing water for southern New Mexico, far west Texas and Mexico. The Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID) announced April 22 an allotment of 5 inches of water per acre, a far cry from the full allotment of 36 inches. El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1 (EPCWID1) has yet to announce its allotments but manager Jesús Reyes estimated it will be 18 inches of water per acre.

“(18 inches) is about what we had last year,” Reyes said. “We try and conserve as much as we can because we’ve been in and out of drought for 20 years.”

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Bigger ‘Bomb Cyclones’ Could Deluge Bay Area in Coming Decades, Climate Study Finds

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Julie Johnshon

Extreme storms like the massive bomb cyclone that drenched the San Francisco Bay Area last October are likely to become more powerful in the coming decades as climate change alters atmospheric conditions.

The Bay Area could see between 26% and 37% more water from these mega-storms by the end of the century, according to a new study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory commissioned by the city.

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Coastal Commission Staff Says Poseidon’s Ocean-to-tap Water Plant Should Not Be Built

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Andre Mouchard

Poseidon Water’s long-running, controversial effort to turn the ocean off Huntington Beach into tap water for much of Orange County suffered a potentially fatal blow Monday, April 25 when staff for the California Coastal Commission released a report saying the project should not be built.

Citing a range of economic and social factors, including environmental damages from the proposed plant and the company’s track record for slow-walking environmental projects that would offset harm caused by its existing desalination plant in Carlsbad, the staff recommended that the commissioners vote against approving the project May 12 when they hold a public hearing in Costa Mesa.

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Manchester Avenue Potable Water Pipeline Replacement Project Completed

/in , , /by /Water News Network

The Olivenhain Municipal Water District recently completed the Manchester Avenue Potable Water Pipeline Project. In total, 3,700 linear feet of aged potable water pipeline was replaced along Manchester Avenue, Rancho Santa Fe Road and Encinitas Boulevard.

The pipelines previously serving water in this area were installed in 1961 and were approaching the end of their lifespan.

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Colorado River States Agree to Federal Request to Hold Back Water in Lake Powell

/in , , /by /The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg

In a letter sent Friday, the seven states that use the Colorado River agreed with the U.S. Department of Interior and recommended that federal water managers take an emergency action aimed at stabilizing a dwindling Lake Powell, one of the main storage reservoirs on the river.

Earlier this month, federal water managers warned the states, including Nevada, that they were considering an emergency action to hold water back in Lake Powell, an attempt to stabilize the reservoir at serious risk of losing the ability to generate hydropower and deliver water to Page, Arizona, a city with roughly 7,500 residents, and the LeChee Chapter of the Navajo Nation.

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What 76 Inches of Sierra Snowfall Looks Like From Space

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

The recent storm that brought wet weather to the Bay Area last week dumped an “impressive” amount of snow on the Sierra Nevada for the month of April, said the National Weather Service.

The storm dumped 31.1 inches of snow, increasing April’s snowfall total to 76 inches — “almost double what we received January through March,” the UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab tweeted Friday.

Snowfall totals also slightly increased California’s snowpack in the last week to 35% of average as of Friday — up from 28% of average on April 15, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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Bill to Aid Farmworkers Jilted by Drought Effects Advances in Calif. Legislature

/in , , /by /The Sun

A new bill aimed at bringing relief to farmworkers affected by the drought is now one step closer to becoming law.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), aims to provide financial assistance to farmworkers struggling to afford basic necessities. Wednesday it passed in a state senate committee, four to one.

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Long Beach Commission May Further Limit Watering Yards Amid Drought

/in , , /by /Long Beach Postby Jason Ruiz

The Long Beach Water Commission may upgrade the city’s water shortage level next week, which would bring with it new restrictions on when residents can water landscaping.

Updating the city’s water shortage stage comes as California heads toward its third straight year of drought. The proposal to go to Stage 2, which would limit landscape irrigation to two days per week year-round, would take the city back to water conservation rules not seen since June 2016.

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