It’s been seven years since the Little Hoover Commission — a state watchdog agency — warned of disaster ahead because of deteriorating conditions at the Salton Sea. This intensely salty 300-plus-square-mile lake in Imperial and Riverside counties was created by Colorado River flooding in 1905-1907, which filled up the below-sea-level Salton Trough.
Four years ago, when the San Diego City Council approved paying tens of millions of dollars to relocate utility pipes and other equipment to make room for the ambitious Pure Water project, city officials insisted they would recover the money from San Diego Gas & Electric. That didn’t happen. The city sued San Diego Gas & Electric in 2020, saying that the company violated its franchise agreement by refusing to pay to move its equipment.
A new report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) seeks to “dispel a common myth” by declaring there will be no end to agriculture— “as some have envisioned.” The researchers conclude the industry and communities will continue to thrive, despite a rapidly shrinking footprint from water restrictions. “California’s farmers have shown an extraordinary capacity for adaptation to changes in prices, technology and the regulatory environment,” they note.
As California confronts another extended drought and its impacts, it is more obvious than ever that the state has failed to address its water supply and management challenges for far too long. The immediate fallout of the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in is frightening: local residents with wells running dry; urban water rationing and critical shortages; massive fallowing of some of the nation’s most productive agricultural land and the resulting impacts on food prices; and significant uncertainty about our ability to adapt to the future.
California’s Department of Water Resources announced that it has awarded $86 million in financial assistance to meet the immediate and long-term water needs for millions of Californians. The department is providing $44 million to its Small Community Drought Relief Program and $42 million to its Integrational Regional Water Management Program.
The first sign of serious trouble for the drought-stricken American Southwest could be a whirlpool. It could happen if the surface of Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River that’s already a quarter of its former size, drops another 38 feet down the concrete face of the 710-foot Glen Canyon Dam here. At that point, the surface would be approaching the tops of eight underwater openings that allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam.
Many Californians will wake up this morning to a relatively rare phenomenon: Rain. Today, the freezing-cold temperatures and high-powered winds that have gripped much of the state this week are set to give way to a good old-fashioned winter storm: Both Northern and Southern California are expecting rain, strong winds and heavy mountain snow, with an avalanche warning in effect through Friday for backcountry areas in the Sierra Nevada.
The use of smart meters to enforce water restrictions could encourage widespread conservation — but not without local backlash, a new study has found. Amid California’s ongoing drought, researchers partnered with the city of Fresno in summer 2018 to access and identify water violations via household meter data.
Over the last four decades, the area covered by lakes globally has grown by close to 18,000 square miles, an expanse nearly twice the size of Lake Erie. Scientists used satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to map 3.4 million lakes around the world between 1984 and 2019, finding that lake area grew as reservoirs expanded and rising temperatures melted glaciers and permafrost, particularly in Greenland, the Rocky Mountains, and the Tibetan Plateau.
