California’s water authorities will spend $15 million in three crucial water management zones within the drought-ravaged southern Central Valley.
The hub of agricultural production in the Golden State, the Central Valley has also faced the most dire impacts from another historic drought, as thousands of wells went dry last year and many communities faced a total lack of safe drinking water.
Water is going to get more expensive.
It’s a matter of supply and demand:
Clean, easily accessible water is dwindling across Arizona, while those who rely on it aren’t going anywhere. That means we’ll all pay more for the thing that no desert dweller can live without.
California farms and cities that get their water from the Central Valley Project are due to receive a large increase in water allocations this year after snowpack and reservoirs were replenished in winter storms, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Wednesday.
Most recipients of the Central Valley Projects are irrigation districts that supply farms, and some are cities, including those served by the East Bay Municipal Utility District and Contra Costa Water District in the Bay Area.
California’s reservoirs may be as full as they’ve been in years thanks to recent rainfall, but it’s still not enough water to meet the state’s demands — and it will never be if the state doesn’t invest in new ways to capture all that precious water.
Not enough of the state’s heavy rainfall is draining into California’s underground reservoirs to keep us sated, even through the next summer.
Life in the southwestern U.S. as we know it exists thanks to the water of the Colorado River, which flows for approximately 1,450 miles from the Rockies to the Gulf of California.
The river gets its water from the Colorado River drainage basin, which spreads some 246,000 square miles.
As California braced for yet another round of winter storms Wednesday, state water officials announced that they were again boosting supplies for water agencies that serve 27 million residents.
The Department of Water Resources said it now expects to deliver 35% of requested water supplies — up from the 30% announced last month — via the State Water Project.
California’s water board decided Tuesday to temporarily allow more storage in Central Valley reservoirs, waiving state rules that require water to be released to protect salmon and other endangered fish.
The waiver means more water can be sent to the cities and growers that receive supplies from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta through the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. The state aqueduct delivers water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and 750,000 acres of farmland, while the Central Valley Project mostly serves farms.
Only weeks after a series of atmospheric rivers deluged California, the state is once again bracing for powerful winter weather that could deliver heaps of rain and snow, including fresh powder at elevations as low as 1,500 feet.
But as worsening climate extremes and water supply challenges continue to bedevil the state, officials cautioned residents Tuesday not to assume that the recent moisture signaled an end to the drought.
Figures from the federal government show Nevada used 8% less water from the Colorado River in 2022 as conservation ramped up during one of the drought’s worst years.
Southern Nevada continues to make “tremendous progress” in water savings, according to John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
A man in Arizona sees a glimpse of a potentially frightening future. A future where the planet is hotter, the soil is drier, and our most precious resource is evaporating.
His job is delivering water. And his job is getting harder.
John Hornewer is now having to drive hours farther each day to fill his truck, which, in turn, fills the subterranean tanks at homes in an area outside Phoenix.
