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With Water Running Out, California Faces Grim Summer of Dangerous Heat, Extreme Drought

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Paul Duginski and Alex Wigglesworth

Heat waves. Severe drought. Extreme wildfires.

As Southern California braces for unprecedented drought restrictions, long-range forecasts are predicting a summer that will be fraught with record-breaking temperatures, sere landscapes and above-average potential for significant wildfires, particularly in the northern part of the state.

“The dice are loaded for a lot of big fires across the West,” said Park Williams, a climate scientist at UCLA. “And the reason for that is simple: The vast majority of the western U.S. is in pretty serious drought.”

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California’s New Drought Rules: Will They Be Enough to Halt the ‘Alarming Challenges’ Ahead?

/in , /by /The Guardianby Gabrielle Canon

With little hope of reprieve ahead of the warming summer months, demand for water in parts of drought-stricken California is outpacing supply.

The metropolitan water district of southern California declared a water shortage emergency last week for areas that rely on the State Water Project, a sprawling system of canals, reservoirs, and pipelines that snake across roughly two-thirds the length of the state, affecting about 6 million southern Californians in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

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Where Lawns Are Outlawed (and Dug Up, and Carted Away)

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

It was a perfectly decent patch of lawn, several hundred square feet of grass in a condominium community on this city’s western edge. But Jaime Gonzalez, a worker with a local landscaping firm, had a job to do.

Wrangling a heavy gas-powered sod cutter, Mr. Gonzalez sliced the turf away from the soil underneath, like peeling a potato. Two co-workers followed, gathering the strips for disposal.

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Calif. Awards $150M for Groundwater Management

/in , /by /WaterWorld

In an effort to boost water supply reliability for millions of Californians, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has announced its first round of funding to 20 agencies responsible for managing critically overdrafted groundwater basins throughout the state.

A total of $150 million in funding is being awarded to regional groundwater agencies through the Sustainable Groundwater Management (SGM) Grant Program. The funding will go toward projects focused on water efficiency, groundwater recharge, feasibility studies for alternative water supplies, and the installation of monitoring wells.

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The Salton Sea Could Produce the World’s Greenest Lithium, if New Extraction Technologies Work

/in , /by /CNBCby Katie Brigham

About 40 miles north of the California-Mexico border lies the shrinking, landlocked lake known as the Salton Sea. Once the epicenter of a thriving resort community, water contamination and decades of drought have contributed to a collapse of the lake’s once vibrant ecosystem, and given rise to ghost towns.

But amidst this environmental disaster, the California Energy Commission estimates that there’s enough lithium here to meet all of the United States’ projected future demand, and 40% of the entire world’s demand.

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Drought Imperils Arizona Hydropower Plant Operations

/in , , /by /ENR Southwestby James Leggate

Ongoing dry weather in the western U.S. conducive to wildfires burning in New Mexico and Arizona has also helped drop the waters of Lake Powell to a level approaching the minimum needed to operate the Glen Canyon Dam hydroelectric power plant.

“This year the Colorado River Basin has experienced extremely variable conditions with a record high snowpack one month, followed by weeks without snow,” David Palumbo, acting commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said in a statement. “This variable hydrology and a warmer, drier west have drastically impacted our operations and we are faced with the urgent need to manage in the moment.”

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Why Farmers Often Pay Higher Water Rates and Fees During Drought

/in , /by /Capital Pressby Sierra Dawn McClain

California walnut grower Tim McCord is at the dry end of the spigot, facing a zero-water allocation from the Central Valley Project, which is supposed to deliver to his local San Benito County Water District.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said McCord.

The farmer is not just concerned about his orchard; he’s also frustrated that he owes substantial water-related taxes to the district, and, if water is eventually delivered, he’ll be charged $309.75 per acre-foot — more than in non-drought years.

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Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Is Delaying Releases

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

With long-term severe drought continuing to take a toll on the Colorado River, the federal government is expected to announce on Monday that it will retain some water in one of the river’s major reservoirs to temporarily stave off what it called increased uncertainty in water and electricity supplies.

The anticipated decision to keep more water in Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, rather than releasing it downstream to the other major reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas, comes as both are at record-low levels after 20 years of drought.

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Newsom: Desalination Project Should be Approved — “We Need More Damn Tools in the Toolkit”

/in , , /by /Mercury Newsby Paul Rogers

Citing California’s worsening drought conditions, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday made a powerful new push for a controversial $1.4 billion desalination plant on the state’s coastline.

The proposed oceanfront facility in Huntington Beach has been under debate for more than 20 years, and its fate could set a course for other desalination plants on the state’s coast. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to take a final vote on the project in two weeks.

“We need more tools in the damn tool kit,” Newsom said during a meeting with the Bay Area News Group editorial board when asked about the project. “We are as dumb as we want to be. What more evidence do you need that you need to have more tools in the tool kit than what we’ve experienced? Seven out of the last 10 years have been severe drought.”

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Vegas Water Intake Now Visible at Drought-Stricken Lake Mead

/in , , /by /AP News

A massive drought-starved reservoir on the Colorado River has become so depleted that Las Vegas now is pumping water from deeper within Lake Mead where other states downstream don’t have access.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority announced this week that its Low Lake Level Pumping Station is operational, and released photos of the uppermost intake visible at 1,050 feet (320 meters) above sea level at the lake behind Hoover Dam.

“While this emphasizes the seriousness of the drought conditions, we have been preparing for this for more than a decade,” said Bronson Mack, water authority spokesman. The low-level intake allows Las Vegas “to maintain access to its primary water supply in Lake Mead, even if water levels continue to decline due to ongoing drought and climate change conditions,” he said.

The move to begin using what had been seen as an in-case-we-need-it hedge against taps running dry comes as water managers in several states that rely on the Colorado River take new steps to conserve water amid what has become perpetual drought.

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