High in the Rocky Mountains, spring-fed streams and ponds have vanished, leaving patches of cracked mud in what were once spongy meadows.
This year has been so extremely warm and arid that the mountains have remained largely snowless. The water-generating source of the Colorado River, its headwaters, is drying up.
Arizona may soon purchase desalinated Pacific Ocean water to help offset shortages in the Colorado River caused by a decades-long drought. The price tag , however, will likely be very steep unless a long-term deal is struck.
A framework signed June 3 by water authorities in Arizona, California, Nevada and the federal Bureau of Reclamation opens the door for an interstate swap – the first of its kind, according to all parties involved.
Questions are mounting around a proposed artificial intelligence data center in California’s Imperial Valley because its developer is now seeking Colorado River water, despite earlier saying the project would avoid drawing from the drought-stressed river.
KPBS reported that Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing has gone to court to secure 260 million gallons of water per year from the Imperial Irrigation District — about 750,000 gallons a day — for a planned artificial intelligence complex in the desert.
In California, a sprawling 4,000-mile network of canals winds through citrus orchards and fields of tree nuts, delivering irrigation and drinking water to homes and farms across the state.
The canals are critical in an increasingly arid part of the country. But what if they could help fulfill another urgent need: renewable energy?
From a fast-melting snowpack in the Sierra to over-pumped groundwater in the Central Valley and a drought on the Colorado River, California’s water supply is facing enormous pressure. Increasingly, some believe the only real alternative is to draw water from the Pacific Ocean offshore.
Former Water Manager Tim Quinn believes he and his team at OceanWell can do it safely and more affordably.
Water in the Colorado River is dwindling to levels that haven’t been seen in decades, and the seven states whose residents and farmers depend on the river can’t agree on a fair way to divide up what’s left.
Negotiations are going nowhere despite more than six months of ongoing talks, plus cajoling by the Trump administration, which twice gathered governors in hopes of a breakthrough that never came. States are already sniping at aspects of a water-use plan the federal Bureau of Reclamation is set to unveil this summer and impose later this year, and they’re threatening to sue each other over water deliveries, raising the prospects of prolonged legal battles just as Western states face demands to sharply reduce water use.
The state of California is walking back protections meant to keep destructive golden mussels out of Lake Oroville, one of the largest and most important reservoirs in the state.
The move follows a new state-funded risk assessment that the invasive species poses a lower risk to the lake, which water managers say changes the state’s calculus on costly and difficult measures aimed at keeping the invaders at bay.
Third-generation farmer from California’s San Joaquin Valley may become the next head of the federal agency that oversees water supplies in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin.
Aubrey Bettencourt, who recently stepped down as head of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, is expected to be formally nominated by President Donald Trump as the next commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Colorado’s low snowpack and ongoing drought conditions led Gov. Jared Polis to declare a statewide drought emergency Thursday.
The governor activated Phase 3 of Colorado’s Drought Response Plan, which allows the state to take additional emergency response actions, such as emergency funding for unmet response needs, a request for a federal disaster declaration, and reductions in outdoor water usage at state facilities.
In a neighborhood flanked by grapevines and orange groves on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, people cannot drink the water from their faucets because it’s contaminated.
Residents in the area north of Porterville, many of them farmworkers, have been discussing a solution, which they expect will require running pipes to connect to the nearby city system.
