Environmental agencies on the local, state and federal levels are commending the efforts of two tidal habitat restoration projects in Solano County.
The California Department of Water Resources is aiming to preserve smelt and other fish populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by improving food sources and habitat conditions in the Suisun Marsh, specifically by restoring Bradmoor Island and Arnold Slough.
An explosion at the Hoover Dam has prompted an emergency response from a Nevada fire crew, authorities said Tuesday morning.
“We have a crew on the way where we have a report of a fire,” said Lisa LaPlant, a spokesperson for Boulder City.
Boulder City officials said on Twitter that the city fire department was heading toward the incident about 10:30 a.m. after video circulated on social media showing an explosion near the dam.
More extreme water cuts are all but certain in the Southwest starting next year – including new water cuts for California – according to the latest government forecast for the Colorado River and Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir.
Lake Mead, which provides water to roughly 25 million people in Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, is losing water at an alarming rate amid an extraordinary, multi-year drought made worse by the climate crisis.
One morning in the summer of 2018, Kelly Stober woke up and started to get ready for work. But when she turned on the faucet in her shower, no water came out.
Stober lives in a rural neighborhood a few miles east of downtown Sonoma. Like her neighbors, she relies on a well for drinking water, household uses, and irrigation. And her well, sunk 800 feet into the ground, had run dry.
Solvang commercial, industrial and institutional water system customers will face steep financial penalties if they don’t immediately cut back their water usage at least 20%.
City Council members on July 11 unanimously adopted a drought ordinance update that clarifies rate tier penalties in relation to declared drought stages. The city has been in a Stage 2 drought stage since August 2021.
Several parts of Texas are under excessive heat warnings as temperatures are expected to hit triple digits for the 24th day in a row. Temperatures reached 110 degrees in the Dallas area on Tuesday. The high temperatures caused heat-fueled wildfires to burn several homes near Dallas on Monday and forced several people into mandatory evacuations.
California’s forests are in rapid retreat, which bodes ill for the future.
Using satellite data, researchers from the University of California, Irvine found that trees in the state’s mountainous regions declined 6.7 percent between 1985 and 2021 thanks to wildfires, drought and other climate-related sources of stress.
‘’We think Utah will now be in control of its destiny.’’
That’s what Utah Gov. Norm Bangerter said in 1987, as he turned on the first of three pumps designed to drain the Great Salt Lake and save the Wasatch Front from flooding.
I’m not being overly critical of the late governor, who I covered as a reporter and still respect immensely. He had little choice. The state had just paid $60 million for a west-desert pumping project. He had to put a good face on it.
Californians are living in the state’s driest period on record. Officials have urged people to conserve as reservoirs run low and demand exceeds a supply stressed by climate change.
A large share of the state’s water is used for agriculture, and growers have seen water deliveries slashed during the drought. State regulators track water use in cities and towns across the state, collecting monthly data from more than 400 urban suppliers that serve about 37.2 million Californians.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has more than $3 billion ready to fund projects that bolster natural systems which can buffer the impacts of climate change.
In California, funded projects could include sand replenishment, wetlands recovery and expansion, or natural projects that fight coastal erosion.
