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The U.S. Drought Monitor shows roughly 11 percent of the contiguous United States is under what it calls “severe, extreme, or exceptional” drought. The areas where the drought continues to be in control include three different areas of the country. Rebecca Lindsey is the Managing Editor of Climate dot Gov, and she said one of the more prominent drought areas includes the southeast United States. That area has been in the news as wildfires have recently burned over 80,000 acres of land. Southern California has been suffering from a drought for the past five years and it continues today.

A decade ago, environmentalists and the federal government agreed to revive a 150-mile stretch of California’s second-longest river, an ambitious effort aimed at allowing salmon again to swim up to the Sierra Nevada foothills to spawn. A major milestone is expected by the end of the month, when the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says the stretch of the San Joaquin River will be flowing year-round for the first time in more than 60 years. But the goal of restoring native salmon remains far out of reach. The original plan was to complete the task in 2012.

Les Grober, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board, said his agency had done “more than was required” in studying the impacts of the state’s water grab on our rivers. But what became clear during a daylong public session in Modesto was that his agency hasn’t done as much as it should have.Rod Smith, who earned his doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago, had some pointed questions for the bevy of state officials who attended Friday. He started by asking about the state’s assumptions on volatility and reliability.

Even from 38,000 feet in a jet, Hoover Dam is a remarkable achievement. The giant plug in the Colorado River about 30 miles outside Las Vegas, the cause of the swathes of blue in the tan desert landscape, stands as a testament to 20^th century American ingenuity, stubbornness, and political will. From the crest of the dam, the achievement looks more flawed. Lake Mead has dropped 130 feet since 2000, when it was full. It’s now at 37 percent of capacity and declining rapidly enough to capture the full attention of water managers from Los Angeles to Denver.

President-elect Donald Trump has stated his commitment to helping California’s farmers attain more water, as the Golden State prepares to enter its historic sixth year of a crippling drought, with a federal water policy in place that favors fish over agriculture. However, the authority of California’s state agencies over the allocation of its water supply — which includes the federal Central Valley Project — remains a staggering obstacle the nation’s 45th president must confront. Particularly, as the Sacramento Bee points out, when it comes to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is where the endangered Delta smelt primarily reside.