California Lawmakers Return With Major Bills on AI, Water and More
California lawmakers are returning to Sacramento with several major issues expected to dominate the legislative session.
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Colorado River Reservoirs Hit Record Lows As Trump Administration Threatens Major Cuts
A deepening water crisis in the Western United States has reached an impasse as disagreement among affected states is grinding progress to a halt, and the well of potential solutions is close to running dry.
The nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River — have fallen to their lowest levels on record. It’s a moment of reckoning in the drought-stricken West as seven states can’t agree on how to share the rapidly shrinking water supply.
Cities Conserve As Colorado River Reservoir Faces ‘Dead Pool’ Crisis
Cities across the Southwest are stepping up conservation efforts amid the growing crisis facing a key Colorado River reservoir straddling the Utah-Arizona border.
While water costs could rise for Southwest residents, according to experts, it is unlikely that changes in the Colorado River will disrupt the availability of drinking water. Still, cities in Arizona, California and New Mexico aren’t taking any chances. Some are recycling wastewater and limiting when people can water their lawns, while others are desalinating ocean water.
OPINION: California’s Data Center Backlash Is Loud—and Deeply Misplaced
More than 100 recent protests across California and the U.S. over data centers represent the same fierce opposition that horse enthusiasts once mounted against Model T cars.
The times eventually change. And so, in the end, do we.
Data Center Developer Sues for Right To Use Colorado River Water in Thirsty California County
The developer behind a proposed $10 billion data center has filed a lawsuit asserting his rights to Colorado River water in California’s Imperial Valley.
Sebastian Rucci is a Huntington Beach lawyer and businessman pushing the plan in a region already known as a big water user. The Imperial Valley sprouted as an agricultural center that’s the largest user of Colorado River water in the seven states that rely on the river. Farmers use about 80% of the state’s full allocation.
U.S. Government Says Iran-Linked Hackers Are Disrupting American Water and Energy Providers
The U.S. government is warning that Iranian state-backed hackers are actively breaking in and disrupting industrial control systems at American water and energy providers. This new alert comes months after federal agencies warned of an escalation in hacking from Iranian actors amid the ongoing war.
In an advisory updated Wednesday, the FBI, the NSA, the Department of Energy, and CISA said Iranian hackers were targeting programmable logic controllers on internet-connected operational networks, allowing them to manipulate data on their displays, causing outages and disruption.
Mexico and U.S. Team-Up to Build Desalination Plant
Mexico says it’s finally going to hire a company to build a plant that turns the ocean into freshwater in Rosarito, reviving an idea shelved years ago amid protests that the government was privatizing water.
And, in the name of reducing how much water Mexico takes from the Colorado River, the United States is going to help get the water to the cities that need it. Construction could start as soon as Aug. 1, according to a federal Mexican project website, but the government had not yet selected a builder.
California Dodges a Bullet on Colorado River Cuts
California and two other states have avoided the harshest water cutbacks the Trump administration could have imposed over the next two years to deal with the deepening crisis on the Colorado River.
The Times has learned that federal officials have agreed with an offer made earlier this year by California, Arizona and Nevada to reduce what they take from the river by at least 3.2 million acre-feet between now and the end of 2028.
As Lake Powell Shrinks, Marinas Are Having To Adapt to Dwindling Water Levels
Matt Barrett has seen Lake Powell drop nearly every year since 2013 or so, when he started making annual treks to the reservoir on the Utah-Arizona border. Some very snowy winters helped it rebound quickly, but this year was far from that.
“We need another one of those fast,” he said recently. “A few of those fast.”
Expected Colorado River Pact Seen As Step in Right Direction
Multi-year plans for how states will reduce Colorado River water intake could be nearing an agreement, with a federal plan expected to be released in the coming week.
Years of failed multi-state negotiations dragged the federal government into the complicated contract to decide how states would prevent a total collapse of the critical Western water source that is the Colorado River. A soon-expected Bureau of Reclamation impact statement would represent meaningful progress, but not a complete solution for the dwindling river.
