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California Drought: Why More Than 530,000 Acres of Farmlands Are Now Left Barren

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Yoohyun Jung

The years-long drought and dwindling water supply are estimated to have left more than 531,000 acres of California farmlands unplanted without harvest this year — a 36% increase since August of last year.

The new estimates on acres farmed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reflect the struggles of some California farmers to procure water to irrigate their crops as major government water projects supplying their water remain thirsty as drought continues for a third year.

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Citing Nevada’s Example, Cortez Masto Calls on Feds to Make Other States Conserve Water

/in , , /by /Nevada Currentby Jennifer Solis

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto joined state water officials Monday to demand immediate federal action on the Colorado River water crisis as Nevada faces its second year of mandatory water cuts.

Last week, federal officials announced that Nevada would lose about 8% of its water allocation, or 25,000 acre-feet of water, starting January 2023 as a stopgap solution to stabilize water levels at Lake Mead.

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Opinion: California Faces Existential Threat of a Megaflood

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

California had been a state for scarcely a decade and was home to fewer than 500,000 people when it was hammered in the winter of 1861-62 by the most powerful series of rainstorms in recorded history.

“This event, which was characterized by weeks-long sequences of winter storms, produced widespread catastrophic flooding across virtually all of California’s lowlands — transforming the interior Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys into a temporary but vast inland sea nearly 300 miles in length and inundating much of the now densely populated coastal plain in present-day Los Angeles and Orange counties.”

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NM City, Victim of Government Burn, Now Faces Water Shortage

/in , , /by /Associated Press by Susan Montoya Brown and Brittany Peterson

In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, buzzing chainsaws interrupt the serenity. Crews are hustling to remove charred trees and other debris that have been washing down the mountainsides in the wake of the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s recorded history, choking rivers and streams.

Heavy equipment operators are moving boulders dislodged by the daily torrential summer rains that have followed the flames.

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Southern California Has a Plan to Ease the Colorado River Crisis. And it Starts Right Under Your Feet

/in , , /by /LAistby Erin Stone

The Colorado River is the backbone of the West’s water supply. The river provides water to hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and 40 million people in seven U.S. states (California, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada) and northern Mexico. But overuse, a 23-year “megadrought” and aridification fueled by the climate crisis has left the river stretched far too thin.

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‘There’s Simply Not Enough Water’: Colorado River Cutbacks Ripple Across Arizona

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Debra Utacia Krol

Up and down the Colorado River last week, the state, local and tribal leaders in charge of water supplies for more than 40 million people waited to see if the federal government would impose deeper cuts to river allocations.

The Bureau of Reclamation had given states and tribes an Aug. 15 deadline to find ways to conserve 2 to 4 million more acre-feet of water to stabilize the drought-stricken river and its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. Without such a plan, the bureau said, it would act.

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No Firm New Deadline for Colorado River Basin States’ Conservation Plans

/in , , /by /KUNCby Luke Runyon

Federal officials aren’t ready to give states along the Colorado River a new deadline for water conservation goals.

The seven states that rely on the river blew past an August 16 deadline without a plan to conserve 2 to 4 million acre-feet of water. They were given that task by officials with the Bureau of Reclamation and from within the Interior Department. The agency’s models show that amount is what is necessary to keep the river’s biggest reservoirs — lakes Mead and Powell — from reaching critical levels.

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Does the Bay Area Have Enough Water to Build Housing During the California Drought?

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Ethan Varian

When Contra Costa County supervisors last summer signed off on 125 new homes slated for 30 acres of grazing land in the oak-dotted Tassajara Valley, they were warned water was going to be an issue.

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Analysis: As Drought Risks Rise, Investors Eye Thirsty Companies, Solutions

/in , , /by /Reutersby Cole Horton, Ross Kerber and Simon Jessop

As droughts worsen across the world, investors are turning up the heat on companies wasting water and trying to pick winners from a sparse crowd of specialist listed companies looking to address the problem.

From Kenya to California and nearly half of Europe, a shortage of fresh water has grabbed the attention of policymakers and given millions of citizens a fresh window into the stressed state of the planet.

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Opinion: Give L.A. a Little More Money to Help it Take a Lot Less Water

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Times by The Times Editorial Board

California has $1.5 billion to distribute to cities and local water agencies to help the state cope with increasing aridity and less predictable rainfall. Should at least a third of it go to Los Angeles to boost a historic water recycling project?

That’s an easy “yes.” $500 million in state funding would be a smart investment not just for residents of L.A. but for the entire state.

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