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A Lot is Still Unknown Heading Into High-Stakes Negotiations on the Future of the Colorado River

/in , , /by /CPR Newsby Rachel Estabrook

Representatives from more than a dozen Indigenous tribes spoke at a CU Boulder law conference last week about their interests in the Colorado River from each of their perspectives.

Many of the prominent state and federal officials who manage the water attended the conference. But as they and other water authorities prepare to negotiate the river’s future, it’s unclear how tribes will participate, to what degree tribes will be treated as equal sovereigns, and how their desire to use all the water they legally have rights to will be considered.

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Could Mother Nature Cut Off California’s Water Guarantee?

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Jennifer Yachnin

In the contentious, yearlong negotiations over how to share the pain of Colorado River shortages, California officials leaned on their state’s status as the basin’s most senior water rights holder — or the last in line to take cuts when supplies run low — to fend off arguments it should bear the brunt of reductions.

The gambit worked, ultimately sparking a compromise in which California will share cuts with Arizona and Nevada over the next three years. The deal means the state will give less than 10 percent of its annual allocation, in line with its original offer.

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Ocean Temperatures Are Off the Charts, and El Niño is Only Partly to Blame

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hayley Smith

In a world of worsening climate extremes, a single red line has caught many people’s attention.

The line, which charts sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean, went viral over the weekend for its startling display of unprecedented warming — nearly 2 degrees (1.09 Celsius) above the mean dating back to 1982, the earliest year with comparable data.

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Opinion: Water is Precious in the American West. California Barely Even Tries to Manage it

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Dave Owen, Nell Green Nylen, Michael Kiparsky

For eight days last summer, a group of about 80 California ranchers and farmers took more than half the Shasta River’s flow during severe drought conditions, violating state requirements designed to protect salmon. The state’s water regulator couldn’t stop the illegal diversion but fined the group the maximum penalty it could — $4,000. The fine translated to about $50 per person.

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Newsom and Democratic Lawmakers Remain Divided on Infrastructure Plan

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Taryn Luna

Democrats leading California’s Senate and Assembly on Monday announced a legislative state budget deal, but they remain at odds with Gov. Gavin Newsom over his sweeping plan to streamline major infrastructure projects and reduce environmental litigation delays. Newsom introduced a series of budget bills related to infrastructure last month after lawmakers had already wrapped up committee hearings on spending proposals.

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The U.S. Rivers in Dangerous Decline

/in , /by /Newsweekby Robyn White

The biggest rivers in the U.S. are the lifeblood of the regions they flow through. They provide drinking water, irrigation for agricultural lands and a habitat where important ecosystems can thrive.

But as climate change worsens, some of the nation’s most important rivers are in serious trouble because of the drought gripping several regions.

Californians Were Asked to Cut Water Use 15% During the Drought. How Close Did They Get?

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Haley Smith and Sean Greene

The results are in: As California endured its three driest years on record, urban water users made a significant effort to conserve water, but fell far short of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request to reduce their use by 15%.

Between July 2021, when Newsom first called on water users to voluntarily cut back, and March of this year, when he rescinded that request amid a very wet winter, statewide savings were 7%, or about half of what was requested. That amounts to about 9 fewer gallons per person per day, a Los Angeles Times analysis has found.

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Colorado River Officials Weigh How to Cut Water, Include Tribes Ahead of Looming Negotiations

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Shannon Mullane

In a warm, overstuffed auditorium at the University of Colorado on Thursday, tribal representatives from around the Colorado River Basin had a message for their federal and state counterparts: Tribes won’t be cut out of key water talks that will decide the future of the basin.

“As we develop a post-2026 plan, it’s no longer acceptable for the U.S. to meet with seven basin states separately, and then come to basin tribes, after the fact, with a post-hoc explanation or rationalization of what was discussed, or even worse, what was decided,” said Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis of the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona.

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Opinion: California Water Rights at Risk as Three Legislative Proposals Advance

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

When California imposed its first-ever regulation on the extraction of water from underground aquifers in 2014, it gave environmental groups a landmark victory in their decades-long effort to overhaul water use laws.

It was also a political setback for farmers, who are California’s major water users and have depended on wells to irrigate their crops as increasingly frequent droughts reduce surface water in rivers and reservoirs.

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Opinion: Finding a New Path to Water Conservation for the Next Millennium, for California and the World

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Peter Gleick

In the long sweep of human history, water has always played a central role in determining the geography of civilizations, and eons ago it influenced the migration of our early ancestors out of Africa and across the world. The ability to manage water contributed to the success or failure of empires along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers of the Middle East, the Indus in southern Asia, and the Yangtze in China. This First Age of water saw the earliest efforts to manipulate water with dams, aqueducts and intentional irrigation, and also the first water laws, institutions and water conflicts.

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