As the Colorado River snakes through the deserts of the Southwest United States, its water is diverted to cities, states, tribes and farmers along its course.
California’s agricultural industry – the nation’s largest food producer — is fighting for its political future.
First came the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a staunch Democratic ally who was unafraid of prioritizing farms over endangered fish in the state’s long-running water wars. Then House Republicans kicked Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a native of the Central Valley’s agricultural heartland, out of the speakership.
Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would allocate $7.25 million to help protect water agency infrastructure in California’s 3rd Congressional District against fire.
If the legislation is also supported by a Senate majority, the Georgetown Divide Public Utility District would get $1.25 million to construct a 2-million-gallon fire resilient water storage tank to aid in fire suppression efforts, according to a news release from the office of Congressman Kevin Kiley.
Craig Elmore’s family history is the stuff of Westerns. His grandfather, John Elmore, a poor son of a Missouri preacher, arrived in California’s Imperial Valley in 1908 and dug ditches to deliver water to homesteaders.
The Bureau of Reclamation recently announced the selection of 31 planning projects to receive more than $28 million in appropriated funding to support potential new water reuse and desalination projects.
The 31 projects are in California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. The projects also bring a cost-share contribution of $64.7 million, bringing the total investment of $93.7 million.
California is drought-free for the first time in more than three years because of a remarkably wet, snowy winter and a rare tropical storm over the summer. The last remaining traces of drought disappeared in October, as autumn rainstorms grazed the northwestern corner of the state.
California rice farmers are celebrating a robust harvest, thanks largely to water availability, according to Tim Johnson, President and CEO of the California Rice Commission. Johnson expressed his satisfaction, stating, “We had a year where we had adequate water and could plant really a full crop of rice almost twice what we planted last year. So, the industry is really happy. Farmers are having a good year.”
Groundwater is one of America’s most precious resources. The water that fills wells, stored naturally in underground aquifers, allowed vast cities to emerge and turned the nation into an agricultural powerhouse.
But the country’s stewardship of groundwater relies on a patchwork of state and local rules so lax and outdated that in many places, oversight is all but nonexistent, a New York Times investigation has found.
Less than a year after facing historic water shortages, California this week was declared drought-free thanks to a year of epic rains, with an El Niño forecast that could keep wet conditions going into 2024.
For California, especially Southern California, El Niño can typically mean larger storms in the winter which can mean more rainfall and larger waves along the coast. Graphic: NOAA
California’s lakes and reservoirs remain in very good shape as an El Niño winter closes in.
Following the record wet winter, lakes and reservoirs were nearly full to the brim as the melting snowpack made its way into them.
