“We’re running out of water.”
That blunt warning from Republican Congressman Michael Cloud, who represents Corpus Christi in the U.S. House, captures how dire the situation has become in the South Texas coastal city, where falling reservoir levels and looming mandatory cuts have brought officials closer to the prospect of severe water shortages across its primary reservoir system.
Nevada, along with its sister states of California and Arizona, has proposed taking a significant cut to its share of the Colorado River, pending approval from officials from each state.
Through a news release earlier this month, the Lower Colorado River Basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona said they are willing to up their commitment to stabilize the river’s water supply with a plan that would deliver up to 3.2 million acre-feet of water savings through 2028.
Among the leading experts who study the Colorado River, Anne Castle stands out.
During the Obama administration, she was assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department. During the Biden administration, she served on the Upper Colorado River Commission. She is now a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Law School Getches-Wilkinson Center.
Golden mussels may be small, but experts say they could create major problems for California’s water systems, prompting urgent warnings to local water agencies across Kern County.
“The message we’re trying to convey today is the mussels are here. They’re down the water project. They’re here. We’re dealing with them now,” Said Samuel Lux, President of Diversified Project Services International.
Seven years ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to bring safe and affordable drinking water to the state’s most disadvantaged communities.
Last week, Newsom celebrated the program’s accomplishments.
Rainfall across much of California and the West has become more clustered in heavier storms, with longer dry spells in between.
The net effect is a drying out, researchers found in a new study. It isn’t just the western United States; the same is true in much of the rest of the world.
In a clear sign that California is not facing water shortages or a drought this summer, Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir and a key component of California’s water system, has nearly filled to the top.
The massive reservoir, contained behind America’s tallest dam, was 99% full on Tuesday afternoon, at 122% of its historical average for mid-May and still slowly rising, with just two feet to go to fill entirely.
San Diego County has long been known as a place that solves hard problems with innovation – and our region’s approach to water is no exception.
While much of the West grapples with drought and water insecurity, our region spent decades preparing and investing for a dry future. That strategy is now paying off in new ways: In the past few weeks, the San Diego County Water Authority approved two landmark water‑transfer partnerships that not only help our neighbors but also deliver real financial benefits for local ratepayers.
In its battle against the drought racking the region, city of Corpus Christi officials have been actively pursuing four seawater desalination proposals — one of its own and three that would be in coordination with private or other public entities.
It’s part of a layered strategy to build supply, augmenting other initiatives to pump groundwater from several well fields and develop treated effluent for industrial uses.
Evolution works over millennia. Climate change is moving far faster. That mismatch is killing some of the planet’s most vital ecosystems, including California’s towering redwoods and the seagrass meadows along its coast, both of which store vast amounts of carbon and support complex webs of life.
Marine heat waves, record wildfires and coastal development are pushing these systems beyond their limits as climate change, driven by emissions of fuels such as oil and gas, accelerates. An estimated 1 million species face extinction, many within decades, largely due to human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution and overuse of natural resources, according to a 2019 report by a United Nations-affiliated intergovernmental scientific body.
