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How Can California Boost Its Water Supply?

Over and over again, drought launches California into a familiar scramble to provide enough water. Cities and towns call for conservation and brace for shortages. Growers fallow fields and ranchers sell cows. And thousands of people discover that they can’t squeeze another drop from their wells.

High Court to Hear Water Dispute Between Navajo, Government

The Supreme Court says it will hear a water dispute involving the U.S. government and the Navajo Nation. The high court said Friday it would review a lower court ruling in favor of the Navajo Nation, which spans parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. The government signed treaties with the Navajo Nation in 1849 and 1868 that established the reservation. It was later expanded westward to the Colorado River, which forms the reservation’s western boundary.

The Scary Big Picture of Having Less Water

As a society we constantly hear the “drought warning.” Then we endure some water conservation efforts and a couple of years later everything seems to go back to normal. As a result, we have become numb to the word “drought.” Wildfires are brutal and get our immediate attention, but we expect they will also burn out.

International Water Researcher Highlights Colorado Basin’s “Disappearing” Groundwater

For the past 20 years, two small satellites orbiting 250 miles above Earth have tracked a stark reality about the nation’s groundwater supplies, including across the parched Colorado River Basin: The water underground is vanishing. The NASA satellites began gathering data in 2002. Since then, Colorado River Basin groundwater has depleted much faster than water storage in the nation’s two largest reservoirs, according to research that underscores concerns about the increasingly tight water supply in the drought-stricken West.

Dried Up: Threats to Colorado Snowpack Pose Risks Far Downslope

As unseasonable fall warmth bakes the Rocky Mountain hillsides, veteran snowmaker Tony Wrone has come to terms with the fact that these are no longer the winters of his youth. “Last year, we had a real hard time because it was so warm in November,” Wrone, who began making snow in Keystone, Colo., in 1996, told The Hill. “Back then, I think we opened one year there around Oct. 18 or something like that,” said Wrone, a snowmaking manager at the Aspen Snowmass resort.

Former Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman to Head Central Arizona Project

Former U.S. Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman will take over as general manager of the Central Arizona Project in the new year, one that promises to include pivotal interstate negotiations over conserving the Colorado River water that supplies the CAP canal. Burman led the Bureau of Reclamation during the Trump administration, a period in which the agency managing Colorado River water and dams helped broker a Drought Contingency Plan. In that plan, Arizona agreed to take less water from the system to prevent catastrophic losses later.

San Francisco’s First Approved Onsite Greywater Reuse System Operational

San Francisco-based water reuse technology company Epic Cleantec announced that a luxury residential building in San Francisco now hosts the city’s first approved and operational onsite greywater reuse system. The system can recycle up to 7,500 gallons of greywater per day, or 2.5 million gallons per year. The building, Fifteen Fifty, is owned by Related California, an affiliate of Related Companies.

Calif. Cities Are Breaking the Bank to Buy Water. S.F. Gets Yosemite Water for $30k. A New Bill Aims to Raise Its Price

As California trudges through its second year of intense drought, forcing local communities to raid contingency funds to pay sky-high retail prices for water supplies, Federal lawmakers are revisiting a deal with the City of San Francisco deemed to be “too-good-to-be-true.” A new bill, introduced by Rep. Connie Conway (R-Tulare), seeks to bring some equity back to one of California’s oldest and biggest water storage deals between the Federal government and the state’s historic big city.

Tensions Rise Over Drought-Stricken Colorado River Water Use

As the Interior Department continues to delay implementing a program to reduce water consumption from the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin, tensions are thickening between the seven states with stakes in the watershed. Now, lawmakers in Congress are fanning the flames as Capitol Hill looks ahead to must-pass, biennial water legislation.

Opinion: Finally, the Feds May Force Action to Save the Colorado River. What if It Comes Too Late?

Finally, the ball is rolling to force action on a plan to save the Colorado River. But will it come in time to make a difference? The seven states that rely on the river have been unable to voluntarily stop using enough water to keep a rapidly tanking Lake Mead and Lake Powell on life support. The feds stepped back from a threat this summer to force action if states couldn’t agree, preferring to rely on voluntary actions instead.