You are now in California and the U.S. Home Headline Media Coverage category.

Gila River Tribe Will Take Offer to Conserve Water, but Yuma Farmers Say it’s Not Enough

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Brandon Loomis

The Gila River Indian Community is the first Arizona water rights holder to publicly pursue the federal government’s new offer of compensation to leave Colorado River water in Lake Mead.

Tribal Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis announced the plan on Monday at a gathering of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s water advisory council, which is reviewing ways to spend $4 billion of Inflation Reduction Act funds targeted at Colorado River drought relief, as well as funds approved in an infrastructure funding law.

Full Story

Interior Announces $137 Million for California Dam Projects

/in , , /by /GV Wireby Bill McEwen

While many environmentalists oppose the construction and expansion of dams, the Biden Administration believes in the value of above-ground water storage.

The Department of Interior on Monday announced $210 million in funding for water storage and conveyance projects in the western United States.

Full Story

Pollution Still Flows Through Clean Water Act Loophole

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Hannnah Northey

Congressional staffers who helped craft the landmark Clean Water Act 50 years ago acknowledge they left a big hole in the law — one that’s now blamed for the single largest pollution source in streams, rivers and lakes.

Nonpoint-source pollution — a technocratic term describing pesticides, oil, fertilizers, toxins, sediment and grime that storms wash into waterways from land — still befuddles federal regulators to this day.

Full Story

Fragile Forests: Millions of California Trees Dying Due to Drought

/in , , /by /Fox 40 Newsby Dennis Shanahan

In forests throughout the Golden State, trees are turning a dark shade of rust, succumbing to the impacts of the drought in a well-documented phenomenon known to forest scientists as tree mortality.

The problem first peaked in 2016 when the U.S. Forest Service released images from a statewide aerial survey, estimating 62 million trees died that year.

Full Story

Recreation Groups Ask for More Inclusion in Colorado Water Plan

/in , , /by /Vail Daily by Heather Sackett

Colorado’s river-recreation community is asking for more recognition in the update to the state’s Water Plan.

In a Sept. 30 comment letter addressed to the Colorado Water Conservation Board Director Rebecca Mitchell and Gov. Jared Polis, a group of recreation, environmental-conservation organizations and local businesses ask for river recreation to play a more prominent role in the roadmap for Colorado’s water future.

Full Story

The West’s Biggest Source of Renewable Energy Depends on Water. Will it Survive the Drought?

/in , , /by /Gristby Emily Pontecorvo

Reports of low water levels at a few big hydropower plants in the West over the last few years have made it seem like hydropower is becoming less reliable. Last summer, officials in California were forced to shut down the Edward Hyatt Powerplant when water levels in Lake Oroville, the reservoir that feeds the plant, dropped below the intake pipes that send water into its turbines.

Full Story

A New Comprehensive Assessment of Ocean Warming Highlights Future Climate Risks

/in , /by /Phys.orgby Chinese Academy of Sciences

A research study just published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment provides new information about how much the planet has warmed and what warming we may expect in the coming decades. This study is important because it motivates us to take actions to mitigate and respond to climate change. It shows what will happen if we don’t take action to slow global warming.

Full Story

Hydropower Production Down 20% as the Upper Colorado River System Finished Water Year 2022

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Chris Outcalt

Hydropower production on the Upper Colorado River system for water year 2022, which ended on Sept. 30, was down about 20% compared with the previous year and about 30% compared with the yearly average since 2000, according to a Bureau of Reclamation official who oversees hydroelectric generation.

“The outlook is likely for pretty low generation years,” said Nick Williams, the Bureau’s Upper Colorado River Basin power manager.

Full Story

Biden Administration Dedicates $30M for Sites Reservoir Project

/in , , /by /KRCR TVby Ashley Gardner

A much-anticipated water storage project in northern California received a major financial commitment from the federal government Monday.

According to the Bureau of Reclamation, the Biden Administration has committed $30 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to the Sites Reservoir project.

Full Story

Opinion: Editorial: 50 Years Later, the Clean Water Act is Under Assault

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Editorial Board

President Richard Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act in 1972. But Congress overrode him on a bipartisan vote, and the landmark law to reverse the toxic degradation of U.S. rivers, lakes and streams took effect half a century ago today.

The law was inspired in part by the notorious 1969 Cuyahoga River fire in Ohio, in which the river itself, laden with oil and other industrial pollutants, went up in flames.

Full Story