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Almost 1 Million Tijuana Residents to Go Without Water Beginning Friday

Almost 1 million residents from 632 neighborhoods throughout Tijuana and Rosarito will be without water service through the weekend starting Friday.

Jesús García Castro, director of the State Commission of Public Services in Tijuana, says crews need to repair a large leak on one of the main lines that delivers water to the entire region.

Intensifying Climate ‘Whiplash’ Set the Stage for Devastating California Fires

The devastating wildfires that have ravaged Southern California erupted following a stark shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather — a phenomenon scientists describe as “hydroclimate whiplash.”

New research shows these abrupt wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of human-caused climate change.

The Water Mystery Unfolding in the Western U.S.

There’s a rural area in Arizona with massive groundwater basins underneath the earth. Water should be plentiful there, but wells are running dry. Today on the show, what’s behind the water issues in rural Arizona?

In Los Angeles, water runs short as wildfires burn out of control

Fire Hydrants Ran Dry in Southern California Just When They Were Needed Most

The water system used to fight the Palisades fire in Los Angeles buckled under the demands of what turned out to be the most destructive fire in city history, with some hydrants running dry as they were overstressed without assistance from firefighting aircraft for hours early Wednesday.

 

Too Wet and Too Dry: The Crazy North-South Gap in California’s Rain

A remarkably wet kickoff to Northern California’s rainy season has coincided with a desperately dry fall in Southern California — a huge disparity, perhaps unprecedented, between the haves and have-nots of rainfall.

Los Angeles usually gets several inches of rain by now, halfway into the rainy season, but it’s only recorded a fifth of an inch downtown since July, its second driest period in almost 150 years of record-keeping. The rest of Southern California is just as bone-dry.

Southern California Is Dangerously Dry for This Time of Year

Southern California is extremely dry right now, with huge portions of the region having seen less than a quarter-inch of rain in the last eight months. The landscape is parched and vegetation is withered, making the area dangerously susceptible to burning, an unusual situation for January.

“The sort of dryness we’re seeing in a lot of the plant species right now mirrors what you would typically expect in October or early November, when the rainy season starts,” said Jonathan O’Brien, a meteorologist with the U.S. Forest Service.

What a New Study Does — And Doesn’t — Say About Fluoride and Its Link to IQ

A new report linking fluoridated drinking water to lower IQ scores in children is sure to ratchet up the debate over a practice that’s considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.

The report published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics synthesizes the results of dozens of research studies that have been released since 1989. Its overall conclusion is that the more fluoride a child is exposed to, the lower he or she tends to score on intelligence tests.

EPA Recognizes Water Affordability Challenges in Report to Congress

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report to Congress on December 17, 2024, detailing water affordability across the U.S. among households and utilities.

The report, “Water Affordability Needs Assessment,” summarizes decades of research by utilities, academics, and associations, and includes recommendations, such as potentially establishing a federal water assistance program; increasing education, outreach, and knowledge around solutions to address affordability; and increasing ways to reduce water infrastructure capital and operating costs.

Nearly 60% of California Is ‘Abnormally Dry’ to Start 2025. Where Are Drought Impacts Worst?

More than half of California was “abnormally dry” just days into the new year, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor’s latest update.

As of Friday, Jan. 3, areas of “moderate drought” were isolated to Southern California while a sliver of the state near the Oregon border was under “severe drought,” the Drought Monitor said.