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Lake Mead Keeps Rising, Crews Adjust Boat Ramp for Higher Water Level

/in , /by /KTLA-TVby Greg Haas

Workers at Lake Mead on Wednesday did something not seen in many years. They actually raised a boat launch ramp. The ramp at Hemenway Harbor was briefly closed as crews adjusted the pipe mat and dock for account for rising water level.

Bureau of Reclamation officials said Monday that the lake has been rising because of “recent storm events and runoff into the tributaries that enter Lake Mead.”

Other factors include reduced releases from Hoover Dam and a “decrease in downstream demand,” according to the bureau. Officials did not provide additional information on the decreased demand.

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World Water Week 2022: Partnership Video Illustrates Value of Groundwater

/in , , /by /Water News Network

A new video illustrating the role and the value of groundwater has been released by the Vallecitos Water District.

“The Value of Water: Groundwater” was produced for World Water Week 2022 through a collaboration with the Vallecitos Water District, the California Department of Water Resources, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency WaterSense.

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Drought Expected to Continue Even With a Wet Winter

/in , , /by /NBC Bay Area by Damian Trujillo

Droughts are here to stay. That’s the warning from Santa Clara Valley Water as we continue to face a severe water shortage and uncertainty with regard to the upcoming winter months.

Rain or not, the message is to expect droughts to be a much more regular part of life, meaning conservation and preparation need to become lifelong habits as well.

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Northern California Ranchers Told to Stop Diverting Water, Defying Rules Amid Drought

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Associated Press

California has warned a group of farmers and ranchers near the Oregon state line to stop diverting water from an area already wracked by extreme drought and a wildfire that killed tens of thousands of fish.

The State Water Resources Control Board issued a draft cease-and-desist order Friday to the Shasta Water Assn., warning it to stop taking water from the Shasta River watershed.

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Weather Whiplash: Summer Lurches From Drought to Flood

/in , , /by /Associated Pressby Seth Borenstein

Parts of northern Texas, mired in a drought labeled as extreme and exceptional, are flooding under torrential rain. In a drought.

Sound familiar? It should. The Dallas region is just the latest drought-suffering-but-flooded locale during a summer of extreme weather whiplash, likely goosed by human-caused climate change, scientists say. Parts of the world are lurching from drought to deluge.

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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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