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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the past 25 years, California’s Salton Sea has grown more polluted and hazardous as it has lost one-third of its water. Shrinkage of similar lakes elsewhere mainly stems from warming trends and water diversion.
But a new paper in the journal Water Resources Research suggests that might not be the case with California’s most polluted inland lake.
The San Diego County Water Authority wants to keep the lights on, even when the Sun goes down. It plans to use San Vicente Reservoir to store solar power energy in so-called water batteries to maximize the city’s renewable energy potential, NPR reports.
Cities across California have an abundance of sunny days, which is perfect for providing renewable energy… as long as the Sun is up. The proposed project could store 4,000 megawatt-hours of energy per day, which could power 135,000 homes after the Sun goes down. To make this possible, the San Diego Water Authority would create a smaller upper reservoir just above the existing San Vicente Reservoir. These would be connected by a tunnel system and an underground powerhouse.
Water supplies are dipping and the outlook for the coming rainy season is iffy at best. That’s the main takeaways from Thursday’s online drought town hall held by Sonoma County.
