In its battle against the drought racking the region, city of Corpus Christi officials have been actively pursuing four seawater desalination proposals — one of its own and three that would be in coordination with private or other public entities.
It’s part of a layered strategy to build supply, augmenting other initiatives to pump groundwater from several well fields and develop treated effluent for industrial uses.
Evolution works over millennia. Climate change is moving far faster. That mismatch is killing some of the planet’s most vital ecosystems, including California’s towering redwoods and the seagrass meadows along its coast, both of which store vast amounts of carbon and support complex webs of life.
Marine heat waves, record wildfires and coastal development are pushing these systems beyond their limits as climate change, driven by emissions of fuels such as oil and gas, accelerates. An estimated 1 million species face extinction, many within decades, largely due to human activities such as habitat destruction, pollution and overuse of natural resources, according to a 2019 report by a United Nations-affiliated intergovernmental scientific body.
From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer.
That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive. It moistens the landscape as it melts, lessening the risk of severe wildfire. The runoff feeds into river basins, and the swelling waterways provide power to hydroelectric dams, irrigation to farmers and drinking water to cities.
The 2026 Pacific hurricane season is just around the corner — and the latest numbers suggest a volatile year ahead.
In the latest outlook from AccuWeather, forecasters are warning of an active season that could increase flood risks for parts of the Southwest U.S., including Southern California, even without direct landfalls.
For the first time, golden mussels, an invasive species of tiny mollusks that can rapidly reproduce and cause millions of dollars in damage to pipes, drinking water plants, irrigation systems and dams — sparking growing concerns across California — have been found in Santa Clara County.
Last month, a juvenile golden mussel was discovered in the raw water intake area at the Penitencia Water Treatment plant near Alum Rock Park in San Jose. A few weeks later, in late April, an adult was found in a raw water strainer at the Santa Teresa Water Treatment Plant in San Jose’s Almaden area.
Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in California, has continued to make headlines. The lake’s water levels are nearing capacity again, thanks to additional storms since January 2026 saturation, which created a steady level increase not seen since 2011. Right now, the reservoir is at a mere 14 feet from full.
While the arid summer months ahead are expected to drop the current level, the overall streak has been quite an impressive and dramatic change. Especially when looking at the timeline of the drought-riddled lake beginning in 2021, a timeframe that included measurements of 38% capacity.
It has been widely reported that March was a disaster for California’s snowpack. Summer seemed to arrive three months early, with record-shattering heat and dryness and a mere pittance of precipitation. Did a relatively cool, rainy, and even snowy April make up for it? The short answer is no—but it helped.
It’s important to remember that snowpack is California’s third-largest source of water storage, behind surface reservoirs and groundwater. Our statewide water supply grid is built around storing roughly 30% of statewide water supply in snowpack, a relatively reliable source of water through the 20th century.
The Colorado River provides water to some 40 million people across seven U.S. states and Mexico. And, after a historically hot and dry winter, those western states are scrambling to shore up supplies.
One solution comes from California, Arizona, and Nevada. The three Lower Basin states recently announced a water-saving plan that aims to “stabilize the Colorado River through 2028.” The proposal suggests a 13% reduction in California’s use of the river water; Arizona and Nevada will also cut back.
The states of California, Arizona and Nevada have proposed voluntary water-saving measures for the next three years aimed at buying time while negotiations remain deadlocked over the future of shrinking reservoirs filled by the Colorado River.
The Colorado River provides water to some 40 million people in the American west. But the two massive reservoirs filled by the river, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both stand at historically low levels, after consistent overdrawing coupled with reduced snowpack and warming from climate change.
